Cognizant to invest in Kolkata

KOLKATA, INDIA: Cognizant has announced that it would invest $46 million in the first phase of the proposed expansion in Kolkata. The company plans to invest the amount through the end of 2008 on land acquisition, facilities construction and furnishing.

Cognizant plans to have over 500,000 sq. ft. of office space in phase 1 to accommodate approximately 4000 new employees. The new fully-owned techno-complex is coming up on 20 acres of land in the Bantala Special Economic Zone.

Cognizant will also continue to lease additional new facilities in Kolkata to meet its headcount growth requirements.

"Building larger Cognizant-owned facilities in India are a key part of our strategy. We expect our new construction program will enable us to meet growing customer demand in North America, Europe, South America and Asia and continue to attract the industry's most talented and best people," said R Chandrasekaran, president and managing director, Cognizant.

"Cognizant has scaled up to approximately 4,000 professionals in Kolkata and is committed to grow this center tapping into the rich talent pool in the Eastern part of India.

The Kolkata development center's focus on high growth industry segments - Financial Services, Pharmaceuticals, Retail, ERP and CRM, and the discipline of high quality execution excellence has enabled us to build stronger customer businesses," said Siddhartha Mukerjee, vice president and head of Kolkata operations, Cognizant.

The investment is a part of Cognizant's program to invest about $200 million through the end of 2008 to build new techno-complexes across Chennai, Coimbatore, Hyderabad and Kolkata over three million square feet and capacity for over 30,000 new employees.