IT minnows make their presence felt

Gujarat, Orissa, West Bengal and Kerala say they have infrastructure to attract infotech investments.

They had missed the IT bus in the '90s even as their neighbouring states like Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra surged ahead.

For instance, the combined IT exports of Gujarat, Orissa, West Bengal and Kerala in 2005-06 (about Rs 4,114 crore) was much less that even that of the fourth largest IT exporter, Andhra Pradesh (Rs 12,521 crore).

These states now assert that things have changed. Ask West Bengal IT Minister Debesh Das if trade unionism will not affect his state's investor-friendly image, and he reasons: "It all depends on how you use Communism. Even Communist China and Vietnam are progressing much faster in the IT sector than anybody else. We have declared IT/ITES sector as public utility services, which means these companies can operate 24X7 and can employ women to work in night shifts. Despite a Left-ruled states, not a single man-day has been lost in West Bengal."

Of all the emerging states that are vying for their pie of IT opportunities, West Bengal is in the forefront, housing about 250 IT/ITES firms. It is putting up an Advanced IT Park and electronic design automation (EDA) delivery centre on 100 acres of land near IIT Kharagpur, to attract investments in KPO, very large system integration (VLSI) design and mobile computing and electronic manufacturing service.

Kerala too, of late, has also woken up to the call of IT with an impressive target of touching software exports of about Rs 1,500 crore in fiscal 2006-07, from just Rs 450 crore a year ago. Gujarat, in spite of all its political and communal turmoil is in no way behind in the race.

So too is Orissa "� the mineral-rich state on the eastern coast which has always been at the receiving end of all sorts of natural calamities. Orissa claims to have an edge over others in attracting IT investments.

Among the few states to house the big fours of the Indian IT "� Infosys, Wipro, Satyam and TCS "�, it expects to soon have Mindtree Consulting, Hexaware and GenPact among others setting up shop in the state.

"The IT policy of Orissa offers incentives and concessions to industries at par with neighbouring Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. The bottlenecks in communication infrastructure have largely been removed by introduction of new and additional flights between Bhubaneswar and IT hubs like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkata," says Surya Narayan Patro, IT Minister Orissa.

Kerala, quite prominent in the tourism map of the country, is also bullish. Looking at the rush in the proposals for investments, the state which already houses firms such as Infosys, TCS, Tata Elxsi, Cognizant Technology, Allainez & Cornhill, McKinsey, Tata Elxsi, is expanding the capacity of the IT parks.

"We are in the process of acquiring 100 acres of land adjacent to Techno Park and another 136 acres of land near the Info Park to cater to the growing demand of the IT companies. Besides, we are also planning to set up a Techno City in Trivandurm on 500 acres of land. The land acquisition is expected to be completed by the end of this year," says Mathew Joshua, manager (Marcom), Kerala State Information technology Mission.

As for Gujarat, even if the state does not have an IT department as such, the state has been quite successful in attracting investment, especially in the ITES sector having over 60 BPO firms successfully operating from the state. While TCS and MphasiS are already there, Wipro, Satyam and Infosys have shown interest to invest in the state.

"All these companies have sought 25 acres of land each at Gandhinagar. We have already identified the land and they have in-principle agreed," says Pankaj Kotak, OSD (promotion), Gujarat Informatics which works as the nodal agency for IT investment with single window clearance system. Gujarat has also introduced the Nasscom Assessment of Competence (NAC) test to obtain the talents for the BPO industry.