Infosys expansion plan hits procedural delay

Infosys Technologies' plan to set up its second development centre in the city in the upcoming Infocity-II region has been marred by procedural delay.     
    
As a part of its expansion plan, Infosys, the biggest software exporter from Orissa, had given a commitment to resume construction work on its second campus at the Infocity-II region by April.

The IT major had agreed to be the anchor tenant of the region which is coming up on over 500 acres of land at Janla, about 15 km from the city.

The state government had agreed to allot 100 acres of land to Infosys for its second development centre out of which 50 acres was to be allotted in the first phase. However, no land has been allotted yet to the IT firm.

To make the matters worse, even the four-lane approach road linking the National Highway 5 with the Infocity-II is nowhere in sight and the land acquisition for this road has not been completed.

It may be noted that without this approach road, no ground work can resume in the Infocity-II region.

Abhijit Sen, centre head (Bhubaneswar) of Infosys Technologies, said, "The Orissa government had assured to provide us 100 acres of land out of which 50 acres were to be allotted in the first phase. But we are yet to be allotted any land.

Besides, work on the approach road to the Infocity-II region has not begun and without this approach road, we cannot think of starting our construction work."

A top IT official of the state IT department said, the Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation of Orissa will hold a meeting on the status of the Infocity-II project on April 6 but refused to elaborate.

Infosys has committed an investment of Rs 300 crore (Rs 3 billion) in the first phase of the project which is scheduled to be operational within 14 months of commencement of construction work.

Infosys has a headcount of around 3,500 at its existing city centre spread over 45 acres and intends to add 3,000 more people in the first phase of its expansion project.

The second campus would have a pool of 5,000 employees in all.

In December last year, T V Mohandas Pai, Infosys human resources director and member of the company's board had met the state chief minister Naveen Patnaik and had conveyed the detailed plan of the second development centre of Infosys in the city.

As per the estimates of the state IT department, the Infocity-II project would be fully operational by the end of 2012. However, going by the pace of implementation, the target looks improbable.

The state government has already sanctioned Rs 150 crore (Rs 1.5 billion) for developing external infrastructure for the project like approach road, electricity and water.

The Infocity-II project is expected to attract many IT firms and it would have a total manpower pool of 1,20,000.