Tech bosses unite to save golf club
By Suneetha. B

Approximately 26 acres of greenery in the very heart of a city that is barely 35000 acres in area, this is perhaps the reason why the smallest golf course in India with just nine holes is referred to as the lungs of the city. The Trivandrum Golf Club established in the 1850s under the auspices of the Travancore Royal Family is one among the oldest golf clubs in the world outside Britain, even older than the ones in North America and other European countries.

That it has existed till last week as a symbol of the very elite in the capital of God’s Own Country is itself worthy of limelight with all the attention it hogs in the tourist brochures. But the Trivandrum Golf Club is in news this week for a different reason.

The Kerala state government had taken over the club premises last weekend in a hurried move which has been thwarted by the High Court in an interim order. All hell broke loose with the media covering live the dramatic developments of a sleepy weekend and the techie honchos of the city have come forward to join the voices opposing the take over. Mr. Sunil Gupta, CEO of Collabora Enterprises Software Solutions Private Limited and former president of GTech, a strategic association of IT companies operating out of Techno Park in Trivandrum, has issued a press release for GTech; protesting against the take over bid.

He says that the decision to discontinue the golf club is something that the techno park companies and IT industry in the state view as unwelcome, hasty and not investor friendly. He also quotes the government offer in the 1990s, in the initial stages of the development of the Techno Park of starting a golf course within the campus, this has not materialized yet.  Also in other places with a high density of IT companies, the governments are promoting golf but here the government looks to stop the existing golf course from being used for the game. He appeals on behalf of almost all the companies that the move be dropped.

The golf course is right now in the midst of political and bureaucratic dramas, and it remains to be seen whether the government improves its handicap in the game. But this occasion retains its importance as an event when the IT honchos decided to come out together in solidarity against a decision of the government.