First IT-ITeS SEZ operational in Pune

Pune's Kharadi MIDC Knowledge Park became the country's first notified IT- ITeS special economic zone (SEZ) in the country with operations starting at Pachsheel's four million square feet project, Eon Free Zone.

The project will be developed in four clusters of one million square feet each with clients in phase I getting possession by March and going live with operations in June.

"We are adding another 500 seats of incubation facility, thus offering a total of 1,000 seats under incubation," said Atul Chordia, managing director of Panchsheel Reality claiming that the Eon Free Zone was the first IT-ITeS notified SEZ in the country. 

Currently, VSNL International and Eaton have started operations in the incubation facility with 140 and 400 people, respectively.

John Hayduk, CTO and senior vice-president operations and engineering of VSNL International, said: "We are looking at consolidation of our global delivery centre here and plan to up our head count from the current 150 to 400 in the next four months."

VSNL will be offering customer contact, network engineering and design, 24/7 surveillance and other such services that form a major component of the back office operations. "Our plan is to improve efficiencies besides cost as we move more and more complex operations offshore, moving towards remote network management," Hayduk added.