General Electric to up Bangalore headcount to 2,500

The General Electric Company is planning to increase the headcount at its John F Welch Technology Centre (JFWTC) in Bangalore to around 2,500 scientists from the present 2,200 by the end of the current calendar year.

Speaking to Business Standard, Surendra U Kulkarni, technical director (chemistry and catalysis), GE India Technology Centre Private Limited, said, "The parent company is satisfied with the work being done at the JFWTC and hence decided to increase the headcount."

JFWTC, which was inaugurated in September 2000, is General Electric's first and largest integrated, multi-disciplinary research and development centre outside the US. The parent company has so far invested $80 million in the centre in the last four years.

According to Kulkarni, the company would scale up the investments as and when the need arises. "The centre currently has the facility on an area of 24 acres on the outskirts of Bangalore. With the addition of the 300 scientists the total office space would be occupied and if the need arises we would expand the facility," he said

JFWTC has recently acquired 45 acres of land near the existing facility, but Kulkarni said that the company has no immediate plans to start work on the new facility.

He said that JFWTC conducts research and development in high-impact technology areas to seamlessly provide mission-critical innovations to all of General Electric's businesses, with the exception of NBC.

JFWTC collaborates with the company's three other research and development facilities that form the GE Global Research Team to conduct research, development and engineering activities for all of General Electric's diverse businesses worldwide. The other centres are the Research Centre in Schenectady, New York, one centre in Germany and Shanghai.

Kulkarni also said that clearing bottlenecks in the area of R&D is important for the country to progress in the sector. "The Union government must play a more proactive role in developing the infrastructure as well as port and custom clearances and also clearing the bottlenecks such as bureaucratic red tape," he added.