Mumbai: Information technology Infosys has shown interest in setting up a research and development centre of international standards in Kerala.

This was disclosed by the company''s chief mentor N R Narayana Murthy and CEO Kris Gopalakrishnan who met chief minister V S Achuthanandan at Thiruvananthapuram.

The Infosys top brass also offered to set up finishing schools in the state in which weaker sections of the society would be given priority, an official press release said.

Addressing a press conference on the sidelines of the silver jubilee national conference of the National Institute of Personnel Management (NIPM), Gopalakrishnan said, "We are just waiting for the rains to get over to start work on the new campus. We should be able to complete the work within a year then," he said.

He said the new campus would initially have two blocks with a total seating capacity for 4,000 employees. Infosys already employs 1,100 people at its existing business development centre in Technopark.

He said Infosys was also planning to locate some of its business process outsourcing (BPO) operations at the unit in Technopark. At present, such work was being done mainly from the Infosys campus in Bangalore and Pune.

Gopalakrishnan said there have been significant positive changes in the industrial climate of the state in recent years. Successive governments have been taking steps recognising that the state must woo more investments to develop its industrial sector.

Upgrading of quality of infrastructure was essential to develop the industrial sector, he suggested. Gopalakrishnan, however, was appreciative of the quality of the students recruited by the company from the state.