Calcutta, Dec. 6: Cognizant Technology Solutions is looking at consolidating its operations at the new campus, which will come up at the Bantala IT special economic zone (SEZ).

The company, which currently has around 4,500 employees in Calcutta, would hire 2,200 more for its two leased spaces in the city.

“A part of our Bantala campus should be operational by mid-2008. The area is not developed now and the basic infrastructure has to be put in place. We would like to avail of the SEZ benefits at the earliest,” said Siddhartha Mukherjee, vice-president and head of Cognizant’s Calcutta operations, on the sidelines of Infocom 2006.

Besides its techno campus in sector V, the company has rented 100,000 sq ft each at the Bengal Intelligent Park premises and Technopolis.

“According to our calculations, if we allot 100 sq ft per person in the leased space, we should hire 2,200 people more. The operations in the leased properties should start by next year,” Mukherjee added.

With the upsurge in interest in Bengal, many IT companies — small and large — are planning to set up shop in Calcutta.

Mukherjee said the state should not lose sight of the requirements of the older companies while ushering in the new ones.

The older companies helped create a credible story for Bengal and the government needs to support them wholeheartedly, he added.

Mukherjee said the company would have ideally liked a plot in Rajerhat but the asking rate of Rs 2 crore an acre was too steep.

Satyam centre

Nine months after chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee laid the foundation stone at Satyam’s propsed 2.77-acre software development centre campus in sector V, the company will start construction. “We have finally got all the clearances and the construction would start any day,” said B. Ramalinga Raju, founder and chairman of Satyam Computer Services.