| Big Catches |
| • Wipro has already kicked off operations • Satyam has said yes to Calcutta; logistics being worked out • ITC Infotech has submitted its proposal to the government • Talks with GE Capital are in the final stages • Infosys team expected to arrive soon for talks |
From a hesitant “no” to a resounding “yes”, HSBC took eight months to effect a 360-degree turnaround towards Calcutta. On Wednesday, the banking and financial services major signed on the dotted line to set up a group service centre in the city.
“When we first met HSBC officials last year, they were not quite willing to come to Calcutta. But things changed after they started gathering information on Bengal, till they finally decided to set up a base in the city,” said state IT minister Manab Mukherjee, promising that 2004 would be a “year of surprises” for the state’s information technology (IT) and IT enabled service (ITES) industries.
Announcing its arrival in the country’s “emerging IT hub”, Malcolm Wagget, chief operating officer (COO), HSBC Electronic Data Processing India (HDPI), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the HSBC Group, signed the MoU on Wednesday and unveiled the company’s Calcutta plans.
The HSBC group service centre would come up on a 3.5-acre plot in Salt Lake. To be constructed by L&T Infocity, the facility in DJ Block of Sector III would occupy around 180,000 sq ft and include food courts and games facilities.
Niall S.K. Booker, group general manager and CEO of HSBC India, spelt out the four clinching factors that had brought the centre to Calcutta — attitude of the government, requisite infrastructure, good telecom links and talent pool.
“HSBC first came to Calcutta in 1867… I am delighted that the state of West Bengal can now offer us the necessary infrastructure to establish a group service centre in Calcutta,” summed up Booker.
The centre is expected to be operational by the third quarter of 2005 with around 500 people, said Wagget, adding that the workforce would then be ramped up.
HDPI, involved in back-office voice and data-processing, has a headcount of around 600 employees in the country. A section of the existing employees in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh — with roots in Calcutta — will be relocated to the city centre, he added. As with the three other HDPI centres, the Calcutta centre will process back-office work for overseas — the US, UK and parts of West Asia — group subsidiaries.
Wagget, in the presence of Booker, signed the MoU with Bengal’s principal secretary, IT, G.D. Gautama, for setting up the company’s fourth centre (investment can be estimated at around Rs 60 crore by industry observers) after Hyderabad, Bangalore and Visakhapatnam. Urban development minister Asok Bhattacharya, who transferred a part of CMDA’s six-acre DJ Block plot to the IT department for the HSBC project, was also present.
