India'S First Software Village At Bangalore

The proposed project was cleared by the government last week. Under this concept, information technology engineers will work in a office-cum-home environment, in an over 20 acre land containing everything from a state-of-the-art software development centre to residential-cum-recreational facilities.

Although the concept has been accepted by MNCs operating in the IT industry in India, it is yet to be implemented by any in the Indian IT industry.

The `software village' will have facilities for career education and training, applied research for development, satellite communication, recreation, etc.

Under an expansion programme, IMR India had requested the Karnataka governement to set up its own ultra-modern `software village' for development of software with an additional investment of Rs 41.30 crore.

 

IMR India has so far invested Rs 50 crore in its Indian facilities.

According to plans, each house in the village would be on a network enabling engineers to carry on work at home and interact with the host computer of clients abroad.

The accommodation for 1,050 engineers will include facilities to cater to LAN (local area network), WAN (wide area network), access to WWW (world wide web), Intel, etc. The office premise would be built in a 1,50,000 sq ft area.

Regarding clearance for the land near Bangalore, the company has said that since the Electronic Park near Bangalore has been marked for industrial purpose, it would be willing to modify rules to conform to the government of India rules.

Currently, the company has a work force of about 215. It proposes to increase this to 1,050 by the time of completion of the project.

Information Management Resources (India) Ltd, an existing 100 per cent EoU, set up under the Software Technology Park (STP) scheme, is currently operating out of a leased premises in Naganathapura, Bangalore.

While the promoters plan to bring in an equity of Rs 10.27 crore, institutionals will chip in an equity of Rs 9.27 crore. A term loan of Rs 4 crore is also envisaged. Another Rs 17.3 crore is being planned through other means.