The Hindu : Business : Infosys sees sizable revenues from SEZs

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Infosys sees sizable revenues from SEZs

Staff Correspondent

Plans to invest Rs. 1,100 cr. this fiscal in setting up centres

Chennai campuses have a headcount of 10,750
IT services business continue to grow

- PHOTO: BIJOY GHOSH

HOLDS PROMISE: Sprawling Infosys campus at Mahindra City SEZ, Maraimalai Nagar, near Chennai.

CHENNAI: Infosys Technologies sees incremental growth from special economic zones (SEZs). In the last couple of years, the company has been setting up SEZs in Chandigarh, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Mysore, and Pune and it has started construction in Mangalore and by April next year will set up one in Thiruvananthapuram.

The company plans to invest Rs. 1,100 crore in setting up centres across the country for the current fiscal and of which it will invest Rs. 1,000 crore in SEZs. Last year, it invested Rs. 400 crore in the SEZs out of the total investment of Rs. 1,150 crore, according to T. V. Mohandas, board member.

He said the company’s investment in SEZs had increased anticipating the removal of STPI (Software Technology Parks of India) norms by 2010. Among all the SEZ centres, Mahindra City, on the outskirts of Chennai, was considered to be the largest.

The total land taken up by Infosys was 129 acres, of which 2.1 million sq. ft. with 11,234-seat capacity had been built in the first phase.

Second phase

Work on the second phase would begin by next month. It will have two more buildings with a built-up area of 5.8 lakh sq. ft. and a seating capacity of 5,000. The planned investment for this project was Rs. 1,250 crore, of which Rs. 453 crore was invested in Phase-I.

The first phase consisted of six software development blocks. He said, when completed, the campus would have a built-up area of 3.5 million sq. ft. spread across 110.35 acres and a capacity to house 25,000 employees.

In Chennai, Infosys had two campuses — Mahindra City and Sholinganallur. The total headcount in the campuses stood at 10,750 as of June 30. Both these operations had together recorded exports of Rs. 2,072 crore for the 12 months ended June this year, he said.

On the industry, S. Gopalakrishnan (Kris), Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, said though there was uncertainty in macro economy, IT services business would continue to grow. The opportunity for IT services among the industry, customer and geography-wise was enormous.

The new services, which were added in the recent past, had been contributing over 50 per cent of the total revenue, he added.

Regarding the acquisition of U.K-based consultancy company Axon, Mr. Gopalakrishnan said “We have quoted a fair price and we do not want it be a speculative one. We are confident about it since it is an ‘all cash deal’ and it will be an attractive proposition for Axon”.

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