Infosys has decided to pull out of its proposed campus at the IT park near the Bengaluru International Airport citing lack of basic infrastructure such as road connectivity and water, but its plan to set up a large campus along the Sarjapur Road is still on.
According to sources, while the company has bought a major part of the 300 acres of land required for the campus directly from the sellers, it may also be facing the issues of road and water connectivity to the area.
Besides, in the absence of the availability of land banks by the government in that area, the procedure to acquire those directly from the farmers is also taking a lot of time.
Ramadas Kamath, executive vice-president of Infosys, who also looks after facilities and administration, declined to comment.
“We are optimistic that the Sarjapur Road campus will happen eventually,” he said.
The plan to have a second campus in Bengaluru on Sarjapur Road started seven years ago, even before it decided to apply to the Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board for land at the Devanahalli IT Park near the international airport.
The
company had plans to establish it as an IT special economic zone, which would have functioned as its second and the largest campus in Bangalore.
According to sources, other than road connectivity, water continues to be the biggest problem for the companies that want to establish their presence in the IT Park at Devanahalli.
It is because the place is facing acute shortage of drinking water, while at the same time the water table is quite low.
In order to address the issue, the state government is learnt to have extended supplying recycled sewerage water.
“When you set up large campuses like this, you need minimum 50 litres of water per person; besides, you also need to have your own food courts which can’t run on recycled sewerage water,” said Kamath.
Alternatively, the state government had also proposed Infosys to give approval for digging its own bore wells.
The company declined the offer since boring in SEZ area is completely prohibited by the Central government.
Meanwhile, the Bengaluru-based company is also seen rapidly expanding in cities outside Bengaluru.
Already, Pune has become the largest campus for the company with a sitting capacity of 33,000 employees.