Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 18 (IANS) The new Kerala IT policy, which proposes to give trade union rights to employees, has come under attack from the opposition and IT companies.

The state's Left Democratic Front (LDF) government has given a socialist spin to the IT policy draft released Wednesday, prompting the opposition and IT companies to say it will be a setback for the sector.

"The least they could have done was to have at least gone through the IT policy of ours which was released in 2001. The draft does not give any impetus to the IT industry because we have to compete with states like Karnataka which has a software export turnover of Rs.300 billion and ours is a mere Rs.8 billion," opposition leader Oommen Chandy told reporters here Thursday.

The draft policy lays more emphasis on employee protection and advocates free software.

"There is no harm in promoting free software but it should not be made mandatory. Even West Bengal has taken a proactive step with regard to trade union rights. We have no problem in taking action against IT companies which are violating the rights of employees," said Chandy.

"Another glaring omission is that it says it will announce fiscal incentives at a later date. We demand that there should me a major overhaul of the draft IT policy," he said.

The draft policy says that the rights of employees working in the IT sector will be protected and they will have trade union rights as well.

Sunil Gupta, president of Technopark IT companies, said the government had changed its role from a facilitator to a controller.

"The government should have announced a plan of action and promotional programmes, if any, for development of the IT sector," said Gupta.