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The 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.
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.”
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.”
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| (L-R) Ajai Chowdhry, Chairman,
CII National Council, IT/TES/E-Commerce Committee, and Chairman and CEO, HCL
Infosystems; Shri Siddharth, IAS, Secretary to Government of West Bengal,
Departments of IT and Biotechnology; Dr Debesh Das, IT Minister, Govt of
West Bengal; Sandipan Chakravortty, Chairman, CII Eastern Region and MD,
Tata Ryerson; Kiran Karnik, Past President, Nasscom; Dr NR Bannerje,
Chairman, West Bengal Electronics Industry Dev Corp; Dr Saugat Mukherjee,
Regional Director, CII Eastern Region at ICT East 2008 |
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. 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.”
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.
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.
AVISHEK RAKSHIT
avishekr@cybermedia.co.in Page(s) 1
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