West Bengal set to become IT hub

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 the 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 at 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 who are
pulling up the company costs. “Moreover, small and medium NRI investments 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
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.

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.

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 our Indian person­nel headcount to
40 percent of the global operations. Currently, 26 percent of our total global
workforce operates from India.”

Discussing the possibi­lities in IT in Bengal, Kiran Karnik, former
President, Nasscom said 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.