TCS opens development centre in Lucknow

Tata Consultancy Services on Monday opened its new development centre in Lucknow. Spread over 3 acres, the centre is the second largest IT establishment in Uttar Pradesh after the company’s centre at Noida.

The Lucknow centre has a seating capacity of 1,500, which the company plans to fill by the end of the current fiscal. At present, it has an employee strength of around 550. TCS started operations from Lucknow in 1984.

Speaking after inaugurating the centre, TCS chief executive officer and managing director S Ramadorai said 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 Uttar Pradesh government took immediate “pro-active” steps to ward off competition from other states,” he told the media, adding the immense talent pool in the state and the affordable commercial rentals compared with other IT hubs stand in favour of Lucknow.

UP, which was earlier the second largest IT exporter in the country, has slipped to the sixth position.

Ramadorai stressed that Tier II towns were the next growth drivers for the IT industry, including Lucknow, Pune, Gandhinagar, Coimbatore, Kochi, Guwahati and Mysore.

Acknowledging that the region was fuelling the growth of fresh talent for the Indian IT industry, he maintained the industry needed better physical infrastructure, single-window clearance and other incentives to invest in UP. “Lucknow is facing competition from all parts of India – from Bhubneshwar in the east to Nagpur in the west to Chandigarh-Mohali in the north. Even places like Guwahati are trying hard to climb on to the IT map with speed,” he said.

Ramadorai said IT investments in UP centred around Noida because of its proximity to Delhi than to being a part of UP. “Hyderabad, Gurgaon and Pune have overtaken Noida in the last 5 years. It is obvious that UP needs a new option for IT and Lucknow could follow Noida just as Pune and Nagpur followed Mumbai, Chandigarh followed Gurgaon, Mysore followed Bangalore and Coimbatore followed Chennai,” he said.

The TCS Lucknow centre services clients in the UK, US, Canada, South America, South Africa and Singapore. It also handles select central and UP government projects.

Meanwhile, three top IT companies in the country are exploring the opportunity of investing in Lucknow. “We not only want to invest in Lucknow, but also want other IT majors to come to Lucknow in a big way,” Ramadorai added.