Panel clears Infosys' plan for 2nd campus in Bangalore

Panel clears Infosys' plan for 2nd campus in Bangalore

The Hindu Business Line

A HIGH-LEVEL committee headed by the Chief Minister, Mr H.D. Kumaraswamy, has cleared Infosys' proposal for setting up another campus in the city, according to Mr Shankarlinge Gowda, IT and BT Secretary.

Infosyshad requested approximately 700 acres. "The request is being processed by the land audit committee," he said, here on Friday.

The company had announced recently that it would not expand its Bangalore operations as "there is no land to expand here," according to Mr T. V. Mohandas Pai, Chief Financial Officer, Infosys.

The company had begun talks with the Andhra Pradesh Government to start a campus in Hyderabad. When queried about the 400 acres offered by AP Government to Infosys, Mr Gowda said that the State could not avoid expansion plans of companies in other places. He said, "Bangalore is not competing with other States."

Infosys had already been given 311 acres of land in Mangalore, he added. "Some people choose Bangalore, some don't," said Mr B.V. Naidu, Director, Software Technology Parks of India - Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

Referring to the SemIndia loss, Mr Gowda said, "Bangalore has its limitations. SemIndia requested for 1,200 acres in the city, which we could not deliver. We persuaded them to go to Mysore and even offered to set up a polytechnic college to train manpower. It was a business decision, not a technology one. The State Government was committed to provide all facilities in Mysore."

The Government's future plans for the State include acquisition of 600 acres of land at Mysore, 500 at Mangalore, 2,75,000 at Hubli-Dharwad "where a good number of companies have shown interest".

Mr Gowda said about 1,200 acres of land on the outskirts of the city was to be acquired by the government soon. This is in addition to the 1,400 acres for the hardware park, he said.