West Bengal set to become an IT hub

Kolkata



Aug 8, 2008

Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) recently held a two-day conference

on the prospects and the growth scenario of IT, communication and telecom in

Kolkata.

Major IT enablers and investment drivers in the state attended the event. The

conference focused on the investment and technological possibilities in Kolkata.

Appreciating the efforts made by the state government to woo IT investors in

the recent years, Dr Debesh Das, IT Minister, Govt of West Bengal said, “Last

fiscal, we had a steady growth of 45.6 percent in the IT sector in Bengal with

IT exports topping the charts. We are now targeting to double IT exports in

software. With IBM and Wipro as the major growth enablers in Bengal, we have

revised our IT policy to make it more investment friendly.”

Speaking on the global scenario of IT and the role India can play in the

global forum, Kaushik Chatterjee, CFO, Tata Steel elucidated, “The major

economies in Europe are heading towards stagnation particularly in the field of

IT and manufacturing. As production costs are gradually becoming higher in

Europe, there is an urgent need for them to look into other nations for

production at cheaper rates.”

Touching key issues in investment and expansion process in the region,

Amitabh Ray, Director, IBM India, stated, “Eastern India is less crowded in

terms of investment and capital growth. However, there is a pool of skilled

manpower and a developed distribution system, where IT companies can look for

greater potentials.”

He further added that as the attrition rate is becoming higher in India

particularly in the southern and eastern quarters, companies across the nation

are developing aggressive technical training programs for IT freshers which are

pulling up the company costs. “Moreover, NRI investments in small and medium

range are generating employment on a very small scale but the prospects seem to

be dim compared to the MNCs in terms of operations, marketing policies and the

infrastructure it has,” he said.

Citing the importance of IT companies, Arup Dasgupta, MD, Metalogic Systems

emphasized that academia cannot produce skilled and industry ready professionals

and the onus lies with the IT companies to make them more productive. “IT

major companies share the bulk of software exports, Rs 1.5 lakh is being spent

on each employee every year for training and refresher courses,” he added.

As a solution, CII (East) has recently signed an MoU with Bengal Engineering

and Science University and West Bengal University of Technology for recruitment

and employability issues.

“IT companies need to be more focused and develop their operations in terms

of the dynamics in the market. A change in the operatives has been noticed

recently with major MNCs now focusing on the less developed eastern segment

drawing in more investment and is turning out to be more skilled-manpower

intensive than capital intensive. This may prove to be a major turning point in

the structure of the IT industry,” Roy added.

HCL Infosystems and Capgemini Consulting India are all set to make their

presence felt in the eastern region. In this effort, Capgemini has plans to

increase their headcount by 2,000 in Bengal by the end of Q3 FY 08-09. Capgemini

has already taken up 2,00,000sq ft at Unitech's IT SEZ in the upcoming

Rajarhat project and may acquire BPOs in India and abroad.

Sharing his plans about India operation, Baru S Rao, CEO, Capgemini

Consulting India said, “We will be shifting to the new Unitech SEZ facility by

the next week-end where 1,700 employees may be accommodated. Also, by 2010, we

aim to have 40,000 employees in India raising Indian personnel to 40 percent of

Capgemini's global operations. Currently, 26 percent of our total global

workforce operates from India.”

On the other hand, HCL Infosystems may recruit another 1,200 employees

including freshers in the next fiscal. It is targeting Bengal as its major

consulting hub and system integration.

Discussing the possibilities in IT in Bengal, Kiran Karnik, former President,

Nasscom concluded that Bengal should concentrate on engineering and security

services in the domain of IT, while multimedia and gaming options can be

explored at a later stage.