Karunanidhi woos Infosys, Wipro

In what was supposed to be a private visit by the Tamil Nadu chief minister to Bangalore on Thursday ended up with an official one with M Karunanidhi, who also holds the IT portfolio, wooing the Bangalore-based IT majors to make more investment in the state, more specifically in the tier-II cities.

According to information available to Business Standard, Karunanidhi accompanied by Union minister for communications and IT Dayanidhi Maran visited the campuses of Infosys and Wipro in the morning.

During his visit to Infosys campus, the Tamil Nadu chief minister made a presentation on making Tamil Nadu a leading IT destination in the country.

According to Maran, to give a boost to the IT investment in the state, the Tamil Nadu government was soon going to draft a new IT policy and form a task force, with a special focus on the development of tier-II cities like Coimbatore, Madurai, Trichy and Thirunelveli.

Elaborating on the purpose behind the visit, Maran said, "Basically the idea is to learn from Bangalore and replicate the city's miracle in Tamil Nadu where the government wants to create an IT revolution."

The team, which is also accompanied by state industry secretary Sashikant Das and IT secretary C Chandramouli, will stay in Bangalore for another day and meet the IT captains here.

Maran said that the Tamil Nadu government was evaluating the possibility of setting up an IT park in Hosur, about 40 km from Bangalore to see whether the state would be able to attract more IT investment.

T Mohandas Pai, HR head, Infosys Technologies, said, Infosys had secured 125 acres of land at Mahendra City in Chennai where the largest campus of the company was coming up.

"We will invest Rs 1,250 crore for the development of the new campus in Tamil Nadu in the next 3-4 years of which Rs 350 crore will be invested in the current fiscal."

Pai said Infosys had around 3,500 people at its Chennai campus currently and the company was looking at raising the headcount to around 25,000 in next 3-4 years. Chennai and Hyderabad were growing faster, he said, adding, "Chennai has a great scope for growth and I think even all other cities will grow."

Sources also said that both Karunanidhi and Maran went to the campus of Wipro Technologies and met Wipro chairman Azim Premji. The meeting, which lasted for about 45 minutes, dwelt largely on the facilities being given by the state government.

Sources said that during the meeting, Premji reportedly said that Wipro was looking at expanding its operations in Tamil Nadu. "We are waiting for the allocation of land from the state government to be able to accelerate the expansion," Premji was quoted as saying.

At present, Wipro has about 6,000 people working at its development centre in Chennai in software services and BPO.

Maran said that the outcome of the visit was very positive. "Wipro and Infosys have given positive responses on expanding their operations in Chennai and the tier-II cities in Tamil Nadu. We feel that IT can generate a lot of employment opportunities in Tamil Nadu."