Bengal to add 100 acre to Silicon Valley IT Hub: Mamata

Buoyed by the "verwhelming" response to Silicon Valley IT Hub in which four global companies have evinced interest to set up new investments, the Bengal government is planning to double its area by adding another 100 acre to it, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said Saturday.

Her comments came a day after state finance minister Amit Mitra claimed that four companies -- Reliance Jio, TCS, Cap Gemini and Firstsource Solutions -- had responded to the Expressions of Interest (EoI) floated by the government to set up units at the Silicon Valley IT Hub at New Town which was launched two-and-half months back by Banerjee.

"Encouraged by this quick and warm response, the government is planning to add another 100 acre to the Silicon Valley Hub of Kolkata," Banerjee said in her official Facebook and Twitter posts.

Banerjee said the state government had launched the Silicon Valley IT Hub project on August 13 to attract investment in IT/ITeS/ICT and also build a world-class ecosystem for cutting edge technologies and innovation in the metropolis.

"In 2 months, out of 100 acres of land earmarked for the Hub, four major global IT companies, among others, have applied to set up new investments in 74 acre already," she said.

She said Reliance Jio wants 40 acre to set up a state-of-the-art centre for IT-enabled telecom, Big Data analytics and AI (artificial intelligence).

"TCS wants 20 acre in the hub which will add another 15,000 IT professionals to their current workforce plan of 58,000 in Kolkata. Capgemini of USA has asked for 10 acre to start cutting edge IT business in Kolkata. And Sanjiv Goenka will start with 4 acre for his FirstSource IT company to do global operations from Kolkata," the CM elaborated in the post.

Banerjee said in the post, "Genpact of GE Capital of USA, is investing Rs 300 crore in a massive expansion.