Lucknow gets IT Working Group

To boost the prospects of Lucknow as an IT hub, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) chamber Indian Industries Association (IIA) and Association of Knowledge Workers, Lucknow (AKWL), have formed an IT Working Group comprising representatives of leading IT companies of Lucknow.

The mandate of the group is to work out an action plan for promotion and development of IT and IT-enabled Service (IT & ITES) enterprises in and around the city.

“The group will not only collate data regarding IT companies to analyse their capacities and capabilities, it will also engage the state government in meaningful dialogue to seek incentives for the firms,” IIA Executive Director D S Verma told Business Standard.

About 100 big and small IT firms, both in public and private sectors, operate out of Lucknow employing several thousand professionals.

The big ones include Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), CMC, Sahara Next, UP Development Systems Corporation Ltd (UPDESCO) and UP Electronics Corporation Ltd (UPECL).

The group comprises UPTEC MD Upendra Kumar, TCS Group Leader Arvind Kumar, Sahara Next Head-Operations Anand Sinha, CMC regional head Ajeya Singh, iNSight Solutions CEO Manu Agarwal, AKWL secretary general Dileep Kumar and D S Verma.

IIA felt that Lucknow as an IT destination had been a topic of intense discussion for more than 20 years, but unfortunately all talks failed to materialize till date.

The actionable points identified by the Working group are: - forming a consortium of IT companies in Lucknow, identification of skill sets required by them, creating manpower database, publicise IT happenings in Lucknow through websites, organising educational and training programmes for IT personnel in Lucknow.

The Group will prepare a presentation for the state government and invite the UP IT department principal secretary for discussions next month. It will have a dialogue regarding IT policy, creating infrastructure for IT companies in Lucknow, government job allocation to IT companies and availability of credit to the IT firms.

In May 2009, TCS had launched a new 1,500 seat global delivery centre in Lucknow. TCS Lucknow centre services clients in the UK, USA, Canada, South America, South Africa and Singapore.

Company’s CEO and MD S Ramadorai noted Lucknow had the potential to emerge as an IT hub as around 12 per cent of India’s top-of-line IT professionals come from this part of the country.

“However, this will materialise only if the UP government took immediate “pro-active” to ward off competition from other states,” he suggested.

“The immense talent pool in UP and the affordable commercial rentals compared to other IT hubs stand in favour of Lucknow to emerge as a leader among the next crop of IT destinations in India,” he added.

IIA wants UP to allocate 25 acres of land for the setting of up new IT companies.