Bangalore riots will cost software firms $40 mn

BANGALORE - Rioting by fans mourning the death of a local film icon will have cost the technology hub of Bangalore around $160 million, with software firms losing $40 million in revenues, the finance chief at Infosys Technologies Ltd. said on Friday.

T.V. Mohandas Pai, chief financial officer at India's showpiece outsourcing firm, told Reuters his company lost $4 million on Thursday, when mobs brought work to a standstill in the southern Indian city.

The violence by tens of thousands of fans mourning 77-year-old actor Rajkumar left at least five people dead, and disrupted work in India's silicon capital that is also home to Microsoft Corp. and IBM.

 "We will make up by working one extra day," Pai said on the sidelines of Infosys' fourth-quarter results as the city limped back to normal.

Work at Bangalore contributed nearly half of Nasdaq-listed Infosys' revenue of $2.1 billion in the year to March.

Software companies operating in Bangalore would have seen losses of $40 million in revenue, Pai said, adding that software contributed 25 percent of the city's gross domestic product.