Infy plans 50 acre campus in Kerala

BANGALORE: Infosys Technologies is in the process of acquiring 50 acres of land adjacent to Technopark, Thiruvananthapuram. It is learnt that the negotiations are underway with the state government to allot the piece of land at the earliest. Meanwhile a company statement has informed that it is acquiring 100 acres of land in Pune at the Infotech City, expanding its current 25 acres facility.

According to sources, the company has promised to build a campus and house about 5,000 professionals in the state. It has currently planned to take 55,800 sq ft of space in Technopark and will recruit about 50 professionals starting, January 1^st, 2004. The head count is to be ramped up to 500 within the next couple of years.

Kris Gopalakrishnan, Chief Operating Officer, Infosys Technologies said, "We are happy to announce the start of our centre in Kerala. We are looking forward to our operations in this state, which has made considerable improvement in promoting IT and attracting investment. Kerala has a large talent pool, which is critical for the growth of the people-intensive software industry. We will be recruiting in Kerala in line with business requirements."

The software bellwether plans to add 5,000 professionals in its Pune facility within the next few years. It’s present strength is about 2,200 employees. The company plans to invest Rs 250 crore for the proposed expansion plan in Pune, whilst having invested roughly Rs 126 crore so far.

On the plan to expand the Pune operations, Gopalakrishnan, commented, "Infosys has followed a strategy of setting up world-class software development centers in places where there is rich local talent as well as the required infrastructure. Pune has provided us with both of these and we are happy to expand our operations in this city. The Government of Maharashtra has been extremely co-operative and progressive in its IT initiatives and this has been an important factor in the growth of Infosys operations here."

Infosys has development centers in Bangalore, Bhubaneshwar, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mangalore, Mysore, Mohali and Pune.