The Orissa Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Idco) has allotted three acres of land to Pune-based IT firm Zensar Technologies in the Infocity area of the city for its proposed software development centre.
“Idco has already allotted three acres of land to Zensar Technologies for setting up its development centre in the city. The land was allotted to Zensar within seven days after the IT firm made a proposal to the Orissa government”, Pradipta K Mohapatra, IT secretary, Orissa government told Business Standard.
Zensar Technologies is investing Rs 30-40 crore in its proposed software development centre in the city. Initially, the centre would be run by a pool of 1,500 professionals but Zensar plans to make its Bhubaneswar centre the second biggest in the country after Pune.
Asked on the status of the proposed centres of MindTree Consulting and Genpact, Mohapatra said, “In the last meeting of the Orissa IT department with the different IT players held in January this year, both MindTree and Genpact had informed that they had submitted their building plans to the Bhubaneswar Development Authority.
The projects of these two IT majors had suffered delay due to the ongoing economic downturn.” While MindTree’s development centre was scheduled to be operational by the end of 2009 or the first half of 2010, Genpact expected its proposed Global Delivery Centre to be functional by September 2009.
MindTree had announced an investment of Rs 200 crore for its software development centre which is set to come up on 30 acres of landin the Infocity area. It would have a long-term manpower requirement of 5,000 professionals for running the centre. Genpact Limited, the BPO (business process outsourcing) arm of the US-based General Electric has put up the boundary wall for its Global Delivery Centre. Construction work for this centre is expected to begin by March this year.
Genpact's centre in the city will have a total built-up area of 7 lakh sq ft. Initially, Genpact would hire 500 people for running its operations and eventually, the headcount will be scaled up to 3,000.
Meanwhile, ICICI bank which is setting up its eastern regional hub in the city has submitted a fresh building plan to BDA as it was planning to build a 85-metre tall tower. The bank is now awaiting the plan approval from BDA as well as the environmental clearance from the Centre to start construction work.
