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Wipro, Infosys to invest Rs. 500 cr. each in West Bengal

— PHOTO: ARUNANGSU ROY CHOWDHURY

GOING EAST: (from right) S. Gopalakrishnan (Krish), Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director; Binod H. R., Senior Vice-President and Head of India Business Unit; and T. V. Mohandas Pai, Member of the Board, Infosys Technologies, at the main gate of Writers’ Buildings after meeting the West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee in Kolkata on Thursday.

KOLKATA: In a day of major developments for the West Bengal Government on the industrial front, IT majors Infosys Technologies and Wipro separately announced their investment plans for setting up their facilities in the State. While Wipro already has a unit here, Infosys makes a beginning.

The companies would invest Rs. 500 crore each in the initial phase and begin construction on the 90-acre plot (on which a memorandum of understanding had already been signed) once they got physical possession of the land. Their units are expected to be ready in one-two years from getting the clearances.

Thursday’s announcements came after meetings between the State Government officials and Infosys in the morning and Wipro in the afternoon.

The meetings took place at the State Secretariat in the presence of Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

Infosys had stated its intent on investing in West Bengal for nearly two years, but was not finding the land prices attractive enough.

The price with which the land deal had been negotiated now was not divulged with Infosys officials saying that it would be communicated later.

Other than the State IT Minister, Debesh Das, company officials who were present were: Kris Gopalakrishnan, CEO and Managing Director of Infosys, Mohandas Pai also of Infosys and Tamal Dasgupta, Senior Vice-President, Wipro. The land is near the upcoming Rajarhat township adjacent to the State’s IT hub at Salt Lake. Infosys officials said that they were planning to hire 25,000 people worldwide and 5,000 people at this facility.

As per plans, Infosys which has already signed an MoU on its proposed investments in West Bengal, it will set up its 11th multi-technology, multi-service development centre.

Mr. Das said this land would be part of the IT city that the State Government proposes to set up on 1,200 acres in the PPP (public-private partnership) model. Of this, 600 acres would be given to IT companies and the remaining would be developed as infrastructure, he said.

Wipro officials said this would be a green project where Rs. 500 crore would be invested in the first phase.

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