Nasscom roots for alternate Vedic land

Industry body Nasscom today urged the West Bengal government to allot alternate land to information technology (IT) companies Wipro and Infosys, after the Vedic Village fiasco which led to scrapping of the 600-acre IT project at Rajarhat.

Som Mittal, president, Nasscom, said, “Most companies, when they start off, may not need 100 acres. But as they expand they would require more land and skilled manpower. Moreover, the price at which land would be given to IT companies in Bengal should be at par with what the companies are getting in other states, otherwise it would not make business sense for the companies.”

“IT companies are also willing to go to Siliguri and Durgapur, where the Bengal government is ready to allot land, but first the companies feel they need to start operating in Kolkata proper where advantages are aplenty,” added Mittal.

V V R Babu, chairman of Nasscom regional council, “There is land available at Rajarhat, may be allotted for real estate developments. Some of it could be alloted for IT companies too.”

Nasscom has estimated the IT- BPO industry export growth for 2009-10 at 4-7 per cent and domestic market growing at 15-18 per cent. While uncertainty would prevail, Nasscom feels that the crisis is over and sentiments are improving.

Mittal said, “While the short-term challenges exist, the potential for this industry is tremendous and the industry will not be demand constrained. The opportunity ahead is likely to increase by three times and India can aggregate revenues of $225 billion by 2020. However, 80 per cent of incremental growth will be driven by opportunities outside the current core markets, verticals and customer segments and will require industry to build different business models and the country to invest more in education and infrastructure”.