Infy hub to employ over 1,000 techies KOLKATA: In a double bonanza for the state on Monday, software giant Infosys came out with its final plans for its IT campus in New Town and telecom major Reliance Jio announced a Rs 1,000 crore investment at the Bengal Silicon Valley hub, also in the township.The software giant laid out its concrete plans for the Rs 100 crore campus— to be designed by eminent architect Hafeez Contractor—at the foundation laying ceremony of the Bengal Silicon Valley infotech hub attended by CM Mamata Banerjee.“People talk about Bangalore and Hyderabad, the advantage you are getting there we can offer them here,” Banerjee told top executives of the IT companies present at the ceremony. Buoyed by the response from the two giants, she even directed IT secretary Debasish Sen to arrange for another 100 acres for the phase 2 of the IT hub in New Town-Rajarhat area. The first phase of the Bengal Silicon Valley will be spread over 100 acres.Even as Infy promised creation of 1,000 engineering jobs at its IT campus, Reliance Jio asked for 40 acres for its Rs 1,000 crore state-of-the-art data centre plan at the Silicon Valley hub. “This (project) marks the re-affirmation of our faith in Bengal. Once complete, it will showcase a paradigm shift in the technological progress in the state…,” a Reliance Jio release said.Addressing the gathering, Infosys senior VP Ramdas Kamath said the world class facility will be spread over 50 acres and the tech major will invest approximately Rs 100 crore in the first phase to build a 0.5 million sq ft facility which will initially employ around 1,000 engineers. “We want to work closely with West Bengal government,” he said, adding that the first phase of the project will be completed within 15 months from the date of obtaining all statutory clearances.Later, Infosys CEO and MD Salil Parekh issued a statement congratulating CM Banerjee for laying foundation stone of the Silicon Valley. “I congratulate the government of West Bengal on laying the foundation stone for the Bengal Silicon Valley Hub here in Kolkata. On this special occasion, I would like to thank the chief minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee, for giving Infosys a unique opportunity to further strengthen our presence across the country.”Apart from Infy and Jio, IT giants like Fujisoft, Amazon Internet, DQE Entertainment, Genpact and TCS have shown interest in investing in Bengal. Fujisoft and Amazon signed an agreement with Webel—the state nodal agency for IT—for skill development in various specialised areas of IT and telecom like 3D printing, cyber security, machine learning, animation, internet of things and other areas.

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