Rolta plans to expand

The company is building two new facilities in Mumbai and is plan-ning to hire
around 10,000 people over the next few years.

Rolta India that had gone into the quiet period following income tax raids
has now geared up to expand its exis-ting business and is building two new
facilities in Mumbai.

The facilities would be built in a total space of two lakh square feet, which
would have a capacity of accommodating 10,000 people that the com-pany planning
to hire in the next few years. The company is also on the look out for overseas
acquisition.

Atul Tayal, Joint MD, Rolta said, "Currently, we have around 3,500
people working in different divisions which we plan to triple in the next few
years. There was an incessant need to build new facilities because all the three
business units have been growing at the rapid pace."

The new facilities would be ready by April 2005 and initially more than 1,000
people are expected to move in it, the hiring for which has been going on. The
three business units that include GIS, e solutions and engineering are already
giving good returns and since the company intends to add to value to these
existing business units, it is contemplating the inorganic route of growth and
is out to acquire companies that can add value to it.

More than 60 percent of revenues of company come from GIS business wherein it
provides mapped data to most of the government depart-ments. The company is now
focusing on private as well as public sector companies in this segment and has
bagged the order from BSNL recently.

Since Rolta India has the largest mapping data avai-lable with it in India,
the Government Survey of India has made the company its preferred partner for
setting-up the planetarium and mus-eum that would showcase the mapped areas of
diffe-rent countries.

The company would be in a position to sell that data to private companies as
well if the government changes its policy on it. Currently, as per government
policy the com-pany cannot sell or share the mapped data information available
with it. "Once government makes changes in the policy, we would be able to
sell mapped data and that would be a new business line with huge revenues,"
Tayal added.

Rahul Gupta

Mumbai (CyberMedia News)