NASSCOM inaugrates Regional Office in Kolkata (7th Sep'07)

NASSCOM the premier trade body and the “voice” of the Indian IT industry, today inaugurated its regional office in Kolkata today. The office will be located at Webel Bhawan, Salt Lake City in Kolkata. To mark the opening of the office, NASSCOM organized a seminar to discuss issues in the region which would be focus areas for the regional office which was attended by dignitaries including Dr. Debesh Das, Hon’ble Minister-in-Charge, Department of IT, Government of West Bengal as chief guest and Shri Siddhartha, Principal Secretary, Department of IT, GoWB. 
NASSCOM has been present in West Bengal through several industry events and has over 35 members in the region, in addition to a strong presence of members including leading multinational and domestic IT players, headquartered elsewhere.
Elaborating NASSCOM’s plans in the Eastern region, Mr.Kiran Karnik, President, NASSCOM said, “In line with NASSCOM’s overall objective of promoting the IT industry in emerging locations, we are happy to announce the formal opening of our regional office in Kolkata today. This centre will focus on the entire north-eastern region, Orissa and West Bengal, for various activities and initiatives undertaken by NASSCOM. We are looking at a small setup to begin and to enable this center to address the needs of the industry in this region. Historically, West Bengal, and Kolkata in particular have been well positioned to cater to this industry’s requirements, offering an abundant and suitable talent pool to draw upon, an infrastructure well designed to support the industry and a favourable policy framework. The support we have received from the government has also been most encouraging.”
Talking about the focus for the region, Mr. Karnik said “NASSCOM has signed an MoU with the West Bengal University of Technical Education, through which we will be rolling out the NAC program in the state in the early 2008 timeframe. NASSCOM has also signed an MoU with Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DONER) with an objective of administering NAC to 20,000 students across eight states, between September ‘07 and January ‘08. We hope these initiatives will go a long way in strengthening and showcasing the human resource potential the position of these states, for the Indian IT sector”.  

Experts call for Software self reliance

Experts call for Software self reliance Dependence in software development may lead to high cost of acquisition of technololgy Wednesday, April 25, 2007
B.V.Shiva Shankar
BANGALORE: Even as IT sector is in upbeat mood with good corporate results and robust growth rate, industry experts, foreseeing challenges in future, have called upon Governments to create business environment to enable the sector to face global competition that is destined to be stiffer in coming days.
Participating in a panel discussion – IT Sector: Opportunities & challenges in the next decade-   organized by Webel, a nodal agency of Government of West Bengal, experts stressed the need of self reliance as India is lagging behind in software development besides showing a remarkable progress in services. Without gaining grounds in software and hardware development, cost of acquisition of technology would be the greatest challenge and India would end up  paying hefty amounts to the giants like America, they felt.
Dwelling upon Patent issues, Jaijith Bhattacharya, Country Director, Govt. Strategy, Sun Microsystems India, termed Patents and Standards with punitive measures as non-tariff barriers that hinder growth. Leading to digital colonialism, he said, these non-tariff barriers would drag developing countries into tech- slavery.
Touching upon Governments initiatives, J.Parthasarathy, Director, STPI, appealed the state governments to come out with liberal policies, which ensure inclusive development covering SME sector. Infrastructure development in teir-2 cities must be given importance, he said.
Rural connectivity must be of top priority according to Nagendra Venkataswamy, MD,Juniper India ltd. Dr.Pradip K. Datta, President & Managing Director, Synopsys, emphasized on Electronic manufacturing. Taking hardware challenges into account Semiconductor must be national agenda, he said.
Anal K. Jain, CEO, Bodhi Technologies moderated the discussion, while the panelists rated need of rising standards of education  and retention  of talent as the topmost issue. 
CIOL Bureau 

The Telegraph, Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Plot rate key to IT growth- Minister has plate full

Unionisation issues, exorbitant land prices, strikes and bandhs and slowdown in exports. Debesh Das, Bengal’s new information technology (IT) minister, has a lot on his plate. Whether wooing Infosys to ink a deal or treading the line carefully between trade unions and the corporate sector, Das has his work cut out.

Das told Metro: “With regard to land pricing, it has to be worked out very quickly, since we are in urgent need of plots. I plan to sit down with chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Hidco officials soon to sort out the matter.”

Manab Mukherjee’s successor admitted that the price of land in the state was higher than in other ‘rival’ IT destinations and that was possibly acting as a deterrent to potential investors.

“Bengal has been a late starter and we cannot afford to let these issues slow down progress. A major obstacle has been that most companies prefer land near the airport. We have been trying to convince them to look at other areas as well,” added Das.

With Hidco standing its ground, leading to a rate war over plots, the IT department has decided to acquire land to the tune of 630 acres in phases. An expression of interest has already been issued for about 300 acres in Jagadishpur. Das said the land acquired by the department would be sold at a price substantially lower than the Hidco rate of Rs 2.16 crore per acre.

“The land rate will be lower than the prevailing rate in Rajarhat. We plan to select our associate from the private sector soon to develop the land. I am hopeful that we will be able to accomplish this by June or July,” he added.

Software giant Infosys has shown interest in setting up its next campus in the city. The company even sent a team to scout possible locations. Despite chief mentor N. R. Narayana Murthy praising Calcutta for its infrastructure and the chief minister for his initiative, the land pricing issue at Rajarhat has been the roadblock to a deal.

“We have sent an e-mail to them and expect a reply very soon. The land pricing issue is the main problem. In fact, the Infosys matter was the first point of discussion between the chief minister and me. We are going to sit down with Hidco and try to sort it out soon,” said Das.

While he would not want a September 29, 2005-like bandh during his tenure, Das also made it clear that unionisation in the IT sector was an issue where he would toe the party line.

“According to our party policy, workers have the right to form unions in the IT sector and have a collective bargaining power. However, we understand that work in the BPOs cannot be disrupted. It depends totally on whether they want unions or not… The party will not do anything to hamper investments,” elaborated Das, clarifying that forming a union did not necessarily mean calling strikes.

He promised to take steps to improve the crumbling infrastructure in Sector V.

The Statesman, Monday, September 25, 2006

Webel optimistic about Bengal’s IT dreams

Supantha Mukherjee

India is fast becoming an information technology powerhouse with West Bengal joining other states in the race to become a major IT hub. A driving force behind Bengal’s phenomenal growth in this sector is Webel.

Mr Debanjan Dutta, managing director and CEO of Webel, says West Bengal will soon overtake others states in the race.

Speaking to The Statesman, Mr Dutta said: “Webel’s focus is not only on IT but also on the electronics sector. If the pace of growth of the IT sector is maintained, India is likely to do business worth $36 billion by March 2007, as was projected by Nasscom a couple of years back. But the figure was achieved a year ahead of the projection, in which Bengal’s share was approximately Rs 5,000 crore, including overseas and domestic business. The figure is projected to double by 2010, which translates into $72 billion and West Bengal has targeted to achieve 15 per cent of that projection which translates into approximately Rs 45,000 crore worth of business.”

However, to fulfil Bengal’s dream, he quips: “There are a few obstacles which need to be overcome. Till now what we have done is in Kolkata only. Outside that, the other places in the state hardly has any infrastructure suitable for IT. Even in Kolkata, only Sector V in Salt Lake is developed.”

Hence he stresses on the need to look beyond Kolkata. “We are developing 330 acres of land near Rajarhat, which will be another Sector V. Outside Kolkata, we are developing areas near the airport, Joka and Howrah. Also, we are planning to develop IT parks in Siliguri, Haldia, Durgapur and Kharagpur.”

Speaking about the ongoing projects, he said: “We’ll be developing our own IT parks in Sector V, where we might go with 50:50 joint ventures with private parties. The reason being that we will be making multiple properties requiring huge funds. Secondly, the leaders in Indian real estate are not present in Kolkata. We may attract them as we have done in the case of Infosys, Satyam etc., by giving land, the price of which will be shared by us. But there will be a few conditions, such as they will have to develop some properties outside Kolkata, in locations such as Siliguri, Haldia, Durgapur and Kharagpur. Thirdly, one of the reasons for private participation is that they would do the marketing of the towers by selling or renting them.”

Asked about the slow progress of IT outside Kolkata, he said that in those locations, there is hardly any infrastructure today. Hence large IT companies cannot be expected to go there. Only small and medium size companies may go there.

Mr Dutta said that apart from infrastructure, another important factor is the people. IT is a people driven industry. Lack of well qualified people have added to the supply crunch. In a few years, IT industry in Bengal would require around 1,50,000 professionals and the engineering colleges are lagging behind to fill up this gap. “Webel is working on an idea ~ given by the state IT minister ~ to increase the practical knowledge of fresh engineering graduates. Webel along with some technical institutes would retrain the engineering graduates at a fee,” the Webel MD said.

How’s Mr Dutta coping with the delays and red-tapism of a government-run organisation, since he comes from a private corporate giant like Crompton Greaves? “The decision making process is bound to be slow in a government organisation as against a private organisation. But things are definitely improving. Further more, the clean image of the present chief minister, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and efficient administration of the Bengal government will definitely help attract IT giants to Kolkata,” Mr Dutta said.

Mr Dutta paints a rosy picture of Bengal. But given the poor infrastructure of the state, will the dream come true?

Well, before making any comment, we’ll have to wait and see what happens in the coming years.

Hindu Business Line, Sunday, October 29, 2006

West Bengal pitches for IT in Bangalore

IT IS BENGAL: Dr Debesh Das, Minister for IT, West Bengal, and Mr Siddharth, IT Secretary, addressing a meet at the Bangalore IT. in 2006. — G R N Somashekar

Bangalore's loss could be Kolkata's gain. Promising better infrastructure and supply of good talent, West Bengal, relatively a newcomer in the IT sector was seen aggressively wooing investment from hi-end technology firms at BangaloreIT.in 2006.

Mr Debesh Das, Minister for IT, West Bengal, told a press conference that his State was keen to invite investments from technology firms in areas of semi-conductor/VLSI design and wireless mobility, among others.

"We are meeting officials of several firms, including Texas Instruments, Cadence, Intel and Synopsys, and have asked them to consider setting up their second centres in Kolkata," Mr Das said. The State is also keen to invite hardware manufacturing companies, he said.

Faced with problems of non-availability of land, increasing wage pressure and scramble for talent, majority of the IT firms in Bangalore are looking at other cities to expand their operations.

Firms such as Infosys Technologies, Wipro and ITC Infotech, have already approached seeking land to set up operations.

"We are in the process of acquiring some 1,000 acres of land near the Kolkata airport and expect to provide land to these firms within this fiscal," Mr Das said.

Infosys has sought 100 acres, while Wipro and TCS have asked for 50 acres each.

Further, Mr Das also said his State aimed at increasing its share in the country's total IT exports to 15 per cent by 2011. At present, West Bengal with exports of over Rs 3,000 crore accounts for about 3-4 per cent of total IT exports.

"We aim to grow our exports at over 100 per cent in the next five years," he said.

Mr Siddharth, IT Secretary, said the State was also keen to develop STPI facilities at Haldia, Durgapur, Kharagpur and Siliguri.

PUBLIC UTILITY STATUS

West Bengal, Mr Das said, has declared IT as a public utility service and the move to bring in unionism in IT sector would not have any impact on the investments. "We are not opposing the promotion of IT unions, but it depends on the employees to join them," he said.