K'taka clears first hurdle in Infy plan for 2nd campus

The plans of India’s second-largest IT services provider, Infosys Technologies, to establish a second major campus in Bangalore has cleared a major hurdle, with the Karnataka government giving its approval to convert the space — where the software firm had acquired land for the purpose — into an industrial area.

Katta Subramanya Naidu, Karnataka’s minister for IT, said the state government had cleared Infosys’ proposal for setting up the second campus in the state. “That was a long pending case which got the clearance from the chief minister yesterday. They now only need to convert the land and take permission from the government to start construction work,” the minister said.

Infosys had acquired about 300 acres at the Sarjapur Road area of the city almost two years earlier at a market price. However, since a part of the acquired site was agricultural land, the company was awaiting for the government’s clearance to start the project. The company intends to establish an IT SEZ, which will function as the second and the largest campus of the company in Bangalore.

Since 2004, all successive state governments had been sitting on Infosys’ application for additional land to expand its campus in the city. When the JD (S) was in power, its chief H D Deve Gowda had even questioned the need for additional land.