Bangalore ‘slowly sliding’, lowers hiring

Bangalore ‘slowly sliding’, lowers hiring
The Indian Express

BANGALORE: Tech city Bangalore is ‘‘slowly sliding down a slippery slope’’ as an investment destination due to infrastructure problems, a BPO employee’s murder, the terrorist attack and the lockout at the Toyota Kirloskar automobile plant, a senior official Infosys official said on Wednesday.

‘‘The share of employees being hired for Infosys at Bangalore is coming down in comparison with our other eight centers in India. There is no land available in Bangalore for the kind of expansion we need to continue our growth,’’ says Infosys CFO T V Mohandas Pai.

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Infosys, as of December 31, 2005, had 41,600 professionals - with 16,000 at Bangalore. The company will, over the next year, add nearly 18,000 professionals and of these only around 2,000 will be in Bangalore, Pai said.

‘‘Travel time in Bangalore has expanded a lot. The industry has grown very large and is now growing faster outside of Bangalore. All software companies are saying their hiring here for the 2007 fiscal year will be far lesser than for 2006,’’ the Infosys CFO said.

Infosys itself is looking to expand in Mysore, Mangalore, Chennai, Chandigarh, Bhubhaneshwar and Pune, where land availability is better, he said.

Infosys has incidentally sought nearly 845 acres of land at Sarjapur, near Bangalore.