City to get new IT park in east Kolkata

West Bengal chief minister (CM) Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today, laid the foundation stone for the East Kolkata information technology (IT) park, spread over 10 acre, with a proposed investment of over Rs5,000 crore.

Located at Nonadanga, the park will see investments from Rolta India, HSBC Electronics Data Processing and HCL Infosystems, each of whom would get 5, 3.5 and 1.5 acres respectively, and will be completed in five years.

“Ten thousand high-end jobs will be created in Kolkata when the park becomes operational and it is a sign of our commitment towards the sunshine sector in West Bengal,” said the CM at the inauguration of the IT Park here today.

Geospatial and Geographic information system (GIS) technology major, Rolta India will set up a research and development (R&D) centre, providing employment to 5,000 people.

“We plan to invest Rs2,500 crore over the next five years in the development of this centre. Construction is slated to start within the next year and half. What we plan to develop here is an R&D and a software development centre,” said K K Singh, chairman and CEO, Rolta Group.

IT major HCL Infosystems, on the other hand, will set up a capacity building skill development centre, software integration laboratory at its centre in Nonadanga, to be known as the HCL Regional Headquarter and Center of Excellence.

“The centre”, according to executive vice president, HCL Infosystems, George Paul, “will be instrumental in setting up specially designed software services and system integration product labs.”

The East Kolkata IT Park will be the fourth such endeavour of the Bengal government. The earlier ones include IT hubs at Salt Lake Sector-V, Rajarhat and Bantala.

Admitting that the state had been a late starter as far as development of the IT sector was concerned, Bhattacharjee said that the policies for IT in Bengal were formed only in 2002-03.

West Bengal IT minister, Debesh Das, said, “The park is a key milestone in the progress of the state’s industrial development especially given that it will lead to the creation of 50,000 indirect jobs over and above the 10,000 direct ones”.

Also present at the event were, N R Banerjee, chairman, West Bengal Electronics Industry Development Corporation (Webel), and Tamal Dasgupta, managing director, Webel.