Bengal Rising

For the fist time in several years, there is a difference in the IT industry's

mood in Kolkata. From being pessimistic and 'nothing different to report about',

the city's businessmen dealing in IT and communications are now very upbeat

and raring to go. West Bengal, which was known to be a non-investment friendly

desitination, where infotech was just dragging along, has suddenly seems to have

become a happening place. This is not just because of a few big names in the

business setting shop there, many more IT companies are now giving Kolkata a

serious thought.

Even though many Bengalis head senior positions in software and hardware

companies across the country, Bengal's plan for resurgence revolves around

ITeS, which essentially includes BPO and call centers. "Hewitt Associates,

which did a survey of ITeS locations in India, rates Kolkata very high on some

key parameters like manpower availability, connectivity, and power supply",

says Dr GD Gautama, West Bengal IT secretary.

Gautama, who is known as the man behind West Bengals' IT initiative, is

clearly bullish. SK Mitra, MD of Webel (West Bengal Electronics Development Corp

Ltd), amplifies Gautama's confidence. "Big time investors are steadily

coming to Kolkata. TCS, which already has about 2,000 professionals working out

of the city, will have about 4,000 by the end of this year. Similarly, IT major

IBM, will also have 4,000 people by year-end.

The list doesn't end there. United Airlines has tied up with the TCG Group

for SkyTech, their BPO operations here. The list of interested companies is

getting longer by the day-Wipro, Satyam, GE, just to name few. Recently, a

12-member Chinese business delegation from Shenzhen visited Kolkata, with the

objective of exploring the possibilities of developing business relations

between West Bengal and China in software sector. And it's not just about the

big names and ITeS. Even smaller players are becoming active. Harsh Hada, who

started his company Web Development Corp with just 10 people, is now IBM's

largest application developer in India, is now undertaking huge IT projects for

names like Tisco, NCAER, Metal Junction, Tea Board, Metal and Scrap Trading

Corp. "I have always been very hopefull of Kolkata," Hada enthuses.

"Maybe, now others are also realizing this."

New Promise



The state government is laying its bet on the new 60,000-acre

residential-cum- commercial township Rajarhat, which is close to the airport.

What adds to the confidence is that, besides these infotech companies, the

infrastructure developers are also moving to Kolkata, in a relatively

significant way. Builders like DLF, Raheja's, L&T and Salarpuria, have

taken up reasonable large commercial and residential projects, all focused

around infotech. "The builders will never come, unless they are reasonably

sure of success," says Rajarshi Ghosh, of director of Epitom Networks, a

systems integration company, who has seen a resurgence in business in the last 6

months.

While newer operations are coming up, one question that is often asked is

about the quality of relevant manpower available in West Bengal. Mitra points to

the Skytech example, which managed to get the CMM level 5 certification in a

short time of just over eight months, to emphasize the point that there are

capable people available in the state. While Mitra is upbeat, the fact is that

there are lots of people from other infotech-rich states are ready to move to

Kolkata for work. The earlier 'averseness' to work out of the city, seems to

be going away. This will surely go a long way in transferring experience and

knowledge to the local pool. On the other hand, the government is initiating

several projects for enhancing IT literacy in West Bengal. IBM's project to

computerize 2,000 schools across the state is yet another much-talked about

project.

Walking the Talk



There are lots of factors working in tandem for this feel-good factor. The

state government is putting out all the stops to project the state as a

favourable destination. Right from the chief minsiter Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to

the unusually dynamic Dr Gautama, the state's political, bureaucratic and

business leadership is going all out to convince the world that they mean

business. If it's all about walking the talk, the state's people at the helm

of affairs surely seem positive and focused.

"We are going all over the country, making corporate presentations, and

holding road-shows, to tell companies about the advantages of coming to our

state," says Dr Gautama. There is also the cascading affect. As one big

company gets operational in Kolkata, more show interest. Obviously, factors like

the cost of living index, emergence of shopping malls, multi-cuisine

restaurants, bars, modern and plush residential apartments, clubs-the city's

life-style is alluring enough for the infotech professional and that's been a

big help. Another interesting observation is that the industry today holds a

positive view about the state government's seriousness.

Another positive side to the story is the avalability of a good

communications infrastructure in Kolkata. Almost everyone feels that Calcutta

Telecom is doing a very good job. In a lighter vein, one senior industry person

quipped that the "services are so good here, that we have surrendered

several lines, which we had initially taken as a back-up option because telecom

connections used to be so unreliable earlier". "BSNL in Kolkata is by

far the best in the country," says Dutta Roy. The Hewitt study also rates

telecom and connectivity infrastructure in the city as on of the best in India.

Says SP Chakraborty, CGM, Calcutta Telephones, "We want to be the role

model for BSNL. Broadband services pilot projects are on." To add to this,

the state government has also requisitioned a fiber-optic landing station in

Kolkata, which will cater to all of eastern India. However, for all the

optimism, chief minister Bhattacharjee and Dr Gautama will have to be careful so

as to ensure that IT growth in West Bengal happens not only from inflow of

people and funds from other states, but local IT companies and aspiring

professionals also become part of the success story. Another big challenge that

is likely to come up will be to take the state up the value chain. At present,

most of the development seems to be happening around ITeS and BPO, which is not

known to be as high value as software development. Some work is already taking

place in this direction. To capitalize on the huge potential that animation has

worldwide, Toonz Academy, a JV between Toonz and Webel has been set up for

training animation professionals.

Infotech in West Bengal will soon include places other than Kolkata. An STP

park is coming up in Durgapur, the steel and alloy hub of West Bengal, and in

Kharagpur, the IIT city of technical training excellence. Presently, there are

16,000 people working in about 190 infotech organizations, which generated Rs

1,600 crore in 2003-04 fiscal. "Our vision is to take West Bengal's

contribution to India's IT industry from the present 3.5% to 15% by

2010", hopes Dr Gautama. Whether this target is achieved remains to be

seen. But at the moment, the momentum is surely building up.

Ibrahim Ahmad in Kolkata

Power to the Citizen

Keeping West Bengal's communists governments concern about people-oriented

development approach, there are some interesting projects happening on those

lines

Telemedicine



Rabindranath Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences, Asia Heart
Foundation, B M Birla Heart Research Centre, AIIMS and Norwegian Centre for

Telemedicine have joined hands to initiate healthcare through Telemedicine. They

will be utilising the well-spread Railnet of the Indian Railways to meet their

purpose

Eyes for the Blind



A milestone project, "Computer Aided Text-to-Speech and Text-to-

Braille System", to enable the visually impaired to access and read

documents from the Internet has been developed by WEBEL Mediatronics, a state

government undertaking. The project received high appreciation at Asian IT

Ministers' Conference held at Hyderabad

Networking the Police



West Bengal Police is using IT as an effective tool for administration. The

two-stage Networking connects more than 400 police stations across the state.

The first stage connects all the district police headquarters with the police

headquarter at Kolkata through WBSWAN. The second stage connects all the

district headquarters with the district police stations through a local wide

network. Customised software has been developed to monitor the entire process—from

FIRs to the disposal of the case from the police court