Bangalore still tops in IT occupancy

Infrastructure concerns notwithstanding, Bangalore continues to top the IT occupancy list. In the first half of the year, occupants from the IT industry occupied 1.8 million sq ft, beating Hyderabad and Chennai.

Senior information technology park officials said that the trend will continue, if Bangalore's infrastructure manages to keep pace. Adding to the growing numbers ITPL "" a joint venture between a Singapore consortium led by Ascendas, Tata Industries and Karnataka government "" opened its fifth multi-tenanted building called Inventor.

A 2.8 lakh sq feet building, Inventor, put up at a cost of $165 million in 10 months takes ITPL's built-up area to 2 million. The new campus "" already 60 -70 per cent sold out "" was inaugurated by Tony Han, deputy prime minister of Singapore, and Dharam Singh, Karnataka chief minister on Saturday.

At the launch, Tony Han said ITPL is a testimony to the partnership between Singapore and Karnataka. From being mere trading partners, he said that India and Singapore have moved into alliances in IT, BPO and manufacturing. Currently there are over 1,400 Indian companies in Singapore, he added.

He said that Indian IT firms, by stepping up their presence in Singapore can leverage on the country's brand equity and IT specialty.

By dotting Singapore, IT firms will have immediate access to over 7,000 MNC firms whose presence in Singapore is marked either by their regional headquarters or global manufacturing hubs.