HYDERABAD: Country's largest software exporter the Tata Consultancy Services would further strengthen its domestic headcount by adding up 30,000 more professionals in the current year. This was revealed by S Ramadorai, CEO and managing director of TCS at the foundation stone laying function of the company's new facility here.

`` This year we are recruiting with a gross addition 30,000 professionals. If you take into account the attrition, then the net addition will be 24-25,000. Our ecosystem is going to support more. Not many companies in the country can increase headcount so much. That's the kind of intellectual property we have. That's why we are number one and we want to be number one,'' declared Ramadorai.

TCS' overseas strength is also poised for an upswing with plans to recruit 4000 more professionals outside the country.

Speaking further on TCS' expansion plans, Ramadorai also said that the company is also planning to launch new facilities. Chandigarh, Bhubaneswar, Kochi, Coimbatore, Nagpur, Indore and Visakhapatnam were cited as the possibilities by Ramadorai. ``Wherever we go we will be looking at the infrastructure and trainable professionals,'' said Ramadorai.

Ramadorai also said that TCS wants to stay focused on innovation. ``We were the one who started in R&D in the country. We want to continue our work on innovation oriented R&D,'' added Ramadorai.

Speaking of the challenges in front of India, Ramadorai felt, ``China, Russia, Phillipines, Vietnam apart from the US and UK which has enormous amount of participation, are the challenges to India,''

The foundation stone for TCS' new facility – Synergy Park was also laid here on Monday. The new facility, spread in an area of 51 acres, will house 8000 software engineers.

Laying the foundation stone, state chief minister YS Rajasekhar Reddy said, ``I'm sure that the employment generation from the Hyderabad centre will be much more than what is being projected.''

The first phase of the new facility will be completed by March 2007. ``It is exclusively for TCS to start with but TCS will also be occupying some space in the future,'' said Ramadorai. He also added that TCS and CMC will continue to work together.

TCS' web-enabled information and communication technology solution that it developed for the Andhra Pradesh Rural Employment Guarantee System (APREGS), was also formally launched by Reddy.

Through APREGS one can look at information about villages, work status and wage payments. APREGS promised to simplify activities like the issue of job cards, identification of work to be taken, generation of work estimates, work execution and wage payment. APREGS covers over 650 mandals in 13 districts of the state.

``I'm quit sure that this will help lakhs of people in the rural areas and a total accountable and transparent system can be evolved. Money to the need will need,'' said Reddy.

``Hyderabad is doing very well. The year 2004-2005 saw it achieve a 65 per cent growth in IT. We are the new software destination. Not only software, we are also a hardware destination. We have been doing everything possible to give a congenial atmosphere to the IT companies. We've been giving the best of importance to give proper logistic support. The industry is positively reacting to it,'' said Reddy.

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