West Bengal's bid to make up for late start in IT
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New policy initiatives attract the big players to the State
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KOLKATA has a huge talent pool. It offers the lowest cost of operations.
— Photo: Sushanta Patronobish
BRIMMING WITH CONFIDENCE: Wipro building at Salt Lake, Kolkata.
WEST BENGAL has been a late-starter in the IT sector. It was content to service the sector through its Industry and Commerce department till the Nineties and it was only in 2000 that a separate department was set up to look after this new economy sector.
The perception of a State under long years of Left rule helped little. Images of a poor work-culture, militant trade unionism and resistance to computerisation did not inspire confidence in prospective investors.
But the scenario has been changing rapidly. The dynamism ushered since 1994 (when the new industrial policy was announced), the IT policy and the ITeS policy in 2002, and the fresh air brought in over the last five years of the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government have all led the IT companies to queue up for investing in a State that they had avoided till a few years ago.
Many eager investors
About 235 IT companies including major ones — IBM, Wipro, TCS, Cognizant, PwC Skytech, Computer Associates, NIIT — are already here. The built-up space under occupation, by the IT and ITeS industry, is poised to leap to 13.3 million square feet in 30 months from 1.8 million now. More software technology parks are set to be added to the six existing ones. The IT hub at Sector V of Salt Lake in Kolkata is India's first fully integrated electronics complex. Satyam and ITC Infotech have announced their plans to invest in the State while Reliance Infocomm plans to set up a call centre. Also in the queue are ICICIOne Source, Hinduja TMT and Mahindra BT.
The roadshows held by IT minister Manab Mukherjee, himself a science graduate from St Xaviers College, and his team of secretaries have had their impact and investors have astutely weighed the balances in their favour.
The city has a huge talent pool. It offers the lowest cost of operations. It has the lowest attrition rate and good power availability — prerequisites that make a city a preferred industry destination. IT department officials said that in the ITeS sector West Bengal actually has the lowest attrition rate of about 20 per cent against 30-40 per cent in cities like Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi.
Emboldened by these positive parameters, West Bengal (with 2004-05 exports at Rs. 2,200 crore) which now has a mere three per cent share in the country's software exports plans to catapult itself to a position from where it can contribute 15 per cent of India's total IT revenue and 20 per cent of ITeS revenues by 2010. " It's steep", admits State IT secretary Dr Gautama even as he expresses confidence that it is achievable. "We do not market others' weaknesses but only our strengths," he says adding : "The city is poised for an exponential growth in IT space, given its strengths."
Labour issue
However, two issues that could severely impact the State's IT sector performance as also its recently acquired forward-looking image are linked to two classical factors of production - labour and land.
While in West Bengal, the IT sector had so far escaped the attention of trade union leaders, especially the CITU, the September 29 bandh came as a rude shock as much to the West Bengal government (which had declared the IT industry as a public utility to pre-empt any forcible work stoppage in the sector) as to the investors and employees in the IT sector. Even as the CPI(M) Polit Bureau plans to discuss the issue of unionising the sector, NASSCOM president Kiran Karnick feels that there was need for formation of an association of employers in this sector. But everyone agrees that there should be no space for any outside trade union leader.
High land prices
But along with this issue the problems being faced over land allotment are threatening to mar the State's journey ahead. Sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, mention that an ironical situation now prevails in which land is available for the sector but the price has been set so high as to render projects unviable. The State has developed software technology parks elsewhere too but that has not enthused investors much and it is only recently that an escape route was found when M L Dalmiya and Co offered some land at the Bantala Leather Complex at Rs. 86 lakh per acre (MLD is the BOT party in this project).
INDRANI DUTTA
in Kolkata
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