City of Joy warms up to IT

BANGALORE: Kolkata is likely to become a city of joy for IT workers. About 30 companies have set up shop in the West Bengal capital. Most of them are BPO firms working for both the US and the UK, say senior government officials.
But some of them are working in niche areas, like Skytech which is working with United Airlines and developing products for reservation and cargo automation, or Vision Comptech doing about 5 per cent of ship design work for the US market.
Then there is AIG, one of the world''s largest insurance firms setting up its second Indian centre, the first being in Chennai. And, PWC, now part of IBM, has its biggest audit centre which is ramping up to 4,000 people within two years.
According to Manabendra Mukerjee, West Bengal minister for information technology and environment, apart from the Salt Lake City which is considered the IT hub, a second IT corridor is coming up connecting the airport. "We are also roping in Sourav Ganguly as brand ambassador for Kolkata IT," he added.
Large companies like TCS, IBM, Wipro, Cognizant and Lexmark have also set up large operations there. And the latest buzz is that when Infosys is looking at further expansion, Kolkata is next on the list.
Interestingly, IBM Global Services India has a state-of-the-art centre and ERP that provides SAP R/3, Oracle applications and data warehousing solutions to its customers.
Amitabh Ray, director, IBM Global Services India - Global Delivery, which has a global delivery centre for e-business in Kolkata, says, "We are focussed on strengthening our commitment to the IT industry as well as the government in West Bengal. And, we are also working with the government to leverage the best of IT to drive the benefits of e-governance in the state. Apart from this, we have our training initiatives to strengthen the state''s IT talent pool required to fuel West Bengal''s IT resurgence."
When queried about the labour issues in the state, Mukerjee said the government''s policy classifies IT-enabled services as a public utility service where no bandhs or strikes could affect the working of these units.
Interestingly, Lakshmi Narayanan, president and COO, Cognizant Technologies says, "We were attracted to Kolkata because of its good ecosystem, which includes good quality of people from premier institutions such as IIM Kolkata, Bengal College of Engineering, Jadavpur University, ISI, and IIT Kharagpur. Couple of months back, Cognizant set up its own state-of-the-art technocomplex spread over 1,15,000 sq. ft., which can accommodate about 1,000 professionals."