The new software development campus of Tata Consultancy Services at Rajarhat near Kolkata is likely to be fully functional in next 18 months and the centre expects to have a seating capacity of nearly 20,000 people, a senior official of the IT giant said.
"The new facility will be built in three phases in 40 acres. The first stage is already operational and almost 2,000 people are working there. It will grow to 19,000-20,000 in next 12-18 months' time in different phases," the official told PTI.
The IT bellwether currently has about 28,000 employees in West Bengal in different facilities and it expects to recruit around 4,000 more in the current year, he said.
TCS has two satellite centres at Jamshedpur and Guwahati which are mostly used for training purpose for local projects, he said.
The new facility at Rajarhat will drive the next phase of TCS' growth in the eastern region and help access skilled professionals and students from in and around Kolkata while the investment will also help catalyse further development of the talent and IT ecosystem in the area, a senior TCS official had earlier said.
The company is reportedly investing Rs 13,560 crore in the Rajarhat facility.
Meanwhile, Kunal Bhattacharya, chief information officer of Webel, a nodal agency of West Bengal government for developing Information Technology, Electronics and ITES industries in the state, said industry body Nasscom will be setting up an incubation centre for start-ups in Kolkata.
"The government has given them (Nasscom) 10,000 sq ft area. The Nasscom will be setting up incubation centre there. It is expected to be functional within a year," Bhattacharya said during his recent visit to Hyderabad.
He was part of a high-level official team of West Bengal that visited the Telangana capital to promote 'Global Bengal Business Summit' to be held in January next year.
