Genpact to return unused land in Bengal

KOLKATA: Indian companies have rarely been known to return excess land in their possession even if they foresee no use for it at a future date.
But, in a welcome departure from that tradition, India's No. 1 BPO firm Genpact has now decided to return 50% of an unutilised plot in Salt Lake's Sector V to Bengal's IT department so that the latter can hand it over to another company who has an immediate use for it.
While the quantum of land being given back is not huge being only 1.5 acres what is significant is that a company has chosen to part with a plot in an area where real estate prices have skyrocketed in the past few years.
Of course, returning the land which was part of a 3-acre plot handed over to the company in 2005 would not hurt Genpact since the company already operates out of rented premises in Rajarhat which enjoys SEZ benefits. Earlier this year, Genpact booked an additional 700,000 sq ft at another upcoming IT SEZ in Rajarhat.
"We have been in talks with Genpact for a while and they have agreed to return about 1.5 acres, which is part of the 3-acre plot in Sector V which was handed over to them some years back. The process should be completed soon," Bengal IT minister Debesh Das told TOI.
However, Das did not elaborate on whether Genpact has informed him of what it intends to do with the balance 1.5 acres. However, sources said that it is quite likely that the company may use the remaining land to set up a training facility at Salt Lake, which has become essential following Genpact's stated intention to employ 7,000 personnel at its newly-acquired site in Rajarhat.
Genpact, which started operations in Kolkata in 2004, had always maintained that it wanted to cash in on the city's talent pool and low operational costs for growth. It took three years of coaxing and cajoling before the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government could finally manage to make Genpact set up a presence here.
In November, Genpact president & CEO Pramod Bhasin had said that the company continued to "expect 2008 full year revenues to grow by 26-28% from $823 million in 2007 and adjusted income from operations margin to improve by 80 to 100 basis points to between 17.1% and 17.3%."