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Rediff.com  » Business » Coimbatore, the new IT hotspot

Coimbatore, the new IT hotspot

Source: PTI
March 31, 2005 16:44 IST
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With top IT destinations including Bangalore and Mumbai facing infrastructure problems, Coimbatore is slowly emerging as a preferred destination for leading information technology firms among second-rung cities.

A host of top-rung IT firms, such as Cognizant Technology Solutions, Spectramind, 24/7 Customer, have already announced their expansion plans in Coimbatore.

Coimbatore enjoys the advantage of the presence of 19 engineering colleges in and around the city that churn out over 6000 engineers every year.

The city also has over 70 arts and science colleges and 14 polytechnics, said Lakshmi Narayanan, president and CEO of Cognizant, which is setting up a development centre in Coimbatore, employing 400 people in the first year of operations.

"The Coimbatore facility can also attract good talent from Kerala and Tamil Nadu," he said.

The Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu, the nodal agency to coordinate IT investments in the state, is developing 40 acres of land in Coimbatore for setting up an Information Technology Park. The park would have a built up area of 2.50 lakh sq.metres.

"We don't want Chennai to get overcrowded and face infrastructure problems like Bangalore," said K S Lakshminarayanan, chief technical officer, Elcot, explaining the Corporation's initiative to promote second tier cities such as Coimbatore, Hosur, Tiruchirapalli and Madurai.

Already, Tata Consultancy Service, e-Brahma, KG Infotech, Pricol Instruments and other smaller IT firms operate in Coimbatore. "The city has excellent infrastructure, including power, roads and good public transportation," said Cognizant's Narayanan.

Though Karnataka was also promoting second-rung cities such as Mangalore and Mysore, they are no match to the natural advantages offered by Coimbatore, he added.

Coimbatore was well connected by air, rail and road. "Coimbatore is one of the few tier-2 cities with an international airport with reasonably good domesticconnections," he said.

During 2004-05 fiscal, the software exports from Tamil Nadu were expected to cross Rs 10,000 crore (Rs 100 billion) mark, with almost the whole contributed by Chennai.

Officials said this would change in the coming years with Coimbatore contributing a significant portion to the overall IT exports from the state.

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