Tata Consultancy to start BPO operations in Kolkata

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) plans to shortly start business process outsourcing (BPO) operations from Kolkata too. Currently, it manages BPO operations out of Chennai and Mumbai, and partly from Bangalore.

Towards this end, the company is eager to buy land at Rajarhat in Kolkata, the new IT hub. However, the company has not yet negotiated the land price with the state government.

Currently, it has more than 6,000 employees in Kolkata. "Kolkata has close to nine per cent of all TCS employees in India. With a growth rate of 30 per cent annually, we expect the headcount to be between 12,000-13,000 by 2010 in Kolkata. We, therefore, need land to build a campus with multiple buildings to house our operations. We are thus looking for 40-50 acres of land in Rajarhat," said Ajoyendra Mukherjee, vice-president, TCS.

Going by the figures, the company will be inducting between 1,600-2,000 employees annually. Despite a third of the total number of employees being stationed onsite overseas, space has become a constraint for the company.

If the BPO operation is added to this, the company might not have sufficient seats at its five locations to accommodate all. Mukherjee added the state government was yet to intimate about the price of land.

"We feel that the going rate of Rs 1.8 crore per acre is somewhat high and would be interested in negotiating a price that would serve the interest of both parties," he said.

Although the price of land for the information technology industry is higher in Rajarhat, it is much higher than that of the land owned by West Bengal Industry Development Corporation.

Mukherjee felt that since TCS' need was more immediate, it would be more prudent to buy land that was ready to build on and had social infrastructure ready.

TCS' clients believe that BPO services from Kolkata will help in better integration of business processes for them. If started, the BPO would offer financial and media services, as well as platform-based services, where software developed by TCS itself would be used to manage businesses.