The information technology sector in West Bengal is likely to see addition of 20,000 jobs in 2008. The state currently has about 300 small to big sized companies and employs 55,000.

IT majors like Zensar Technologies, HCL [Get Quote], IBM, Cognizant, PWC, Capgemini, Wipro [Get Quote], Genpact, as well as the IT department of the West Bengal government, have lined up investment in excess of Rs 5,000 crore (Rs 50 billion) this year in setting up new centres and offices, coupled with manpower addition.

According to the companies, factors like excellent resource pool of highly skilled manpower, supportive business environment and low operating costs, have motivated them to escalate investment and operations in this part of the country.

Interestingly, a recent study by brokerage firm Edelweiss Securities estimated nearly 40 per cent rise in fresher salaries on IT firms over the next two years as multinational companies are planning to add over 1 lakh (100,000) personnel in India by 2010.

Global IT companies will add around 1.08 lakh (108,000) employees in India by 2010, by increasing the headcount to 2.73 lakh (273,000). This would be a 65.25 per cent increase from the 1.65 lakh (165,000) employed by the end of 2007.

According to Ganesh Natarajan of Zensar Technologies, it is looking at land in Kolkata to set up a 1000-people unit here.

"We have about 4,100 people in all. We are now looking at land in Kolkata, Jaipur and Indore to set up base," said Natarajan.

IT and technology company HCL is looking at setting up a 1000 people unit in Kolkata.

HCL recently bagged 1.5 acre for Rs 1.8 crore (Rs 18 million) in Kolkata.

"The centre would be up and running by 2008," informed Ajai Chowdhury, chairman and chief executive officer of HCL.

HCL, which has 5000 employees in India right now, plans to employ about 1000 at its centre in Kolkata.

HCL's Kolkata centre is in sync with its plans to set up regional bases all over India, w ith local employees, to cater to places in and around the area.

HCL's Kolkata centre would be a system integration centre and would offer consultancy services.

With new services and sectors opening up, Cognizant Technologies is also looking at doubling its employee strength and even opening new offices to tackle more clients and contracts. It is setting up a new centre at Bantala in West Bengal over six acres.

Cognizant's employee strength will be increased by about 15 per cent. It has about 4,500 employees in Kolkata at present.

Genpact, which manages business processes for companies, will employ 7,000 people in Kolkata, making it the company's third largest centre after the national capital region and Hyderabad.

Genpact recently signed an agreement to acquire more than seven lakh square feet of space at Infospace, an IT/ITES special economic zone being developed by Unitech Hitech Structures.

Genpact started its operations in Kolkata in September 2004 and currently employs around 700 people.

Genpact has recently also been allotted 12.145 acre by the Orissa government.

Wipro BPO would add 500 recruits in Kolkata in about six months from now.

Centres like Delhi and Pune had over 3,000 people, while Kolkata had approximately 2,900, and Mumbai nearly 5,000 employees.

Kolkata as a centre grew at 100 per cent over last year, according to V Anandkumar, vice president, people supply chain and employee branding, Wipro BPO.

At the same time, Wipro Technologies, which has about 100 employees in Kolkata right now, plans to recruit 15,000 software professionls in its proposed development centre at Bhubaneswar. Besides, the company also proposes to set up a Global Training Centre in Bhubaneswar.

The construction of the centre is expected to be completed within 2008. The proposed GTC in Bhubaneswar is expected to provide training facility to about 3000 persons.

PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the largest professional services companies in the world, expects India revenues to double in the next four years on the back of multinational companies setting up shop in India as well as Indian companies looking at expanding overseas.

At present Indian clients contribute 40 per cent to PWC's overall revenues earned by its advisory services while non-advisory revenues from Indian and overseas billing are split around 50:50.

Doubling of revenues would also mean an increase in PwC's manpower strength in India. PwC's overall manpower strength in India is around 4,500 right now and this would be doubled in the next four years.

PwC's consulting business has about 800 employees right now which will also be doubled. PwC's Kolkata centre has about 2,000 employees.

Capgemini Consulting India Pvt Ltd, the Indian arm of France-based Capgemini, has taken up 50,000 sq ft in the DLF IT hub in New Town Rajarhat of West Bengal and will eventually consolidate its city operations from that centre.

In the first half of 2007, the Calcutta operation of Capgemini experienced a growth of 70 per cent. Capgemini also plans to raise its employee strength from the current 17,500 to 40,000 by 2010.

In its past 18 months, Calcutta has touched a headcount of 500 and is expected to soon touch a workforce of 900.

The headcount of the parent company, Capgemini, a consulting, technology and outsourcing firm, stands at 80,000, which it aims to take it to 110,000 by the end of the decade.

According to Gautam Mukherjee, director of Capgemini Consulting India, the company is looking at recruiting 30,000 employees by the end of 2008.

If the company significantly exceeds its current recruitment target, it would be second to IBM, which had around 53,000 employees in the country at the end of last year.

At the same time, the West Bengal government is trying to move up the value chain and make the state a chip fabrication hub in future. According to Debesh Das, the state IT minister, West Bengal is trying to work out ways to attract various chip designing companies to set up offices in West Bengal's 'India Design Centre', the 1.5 acre, Rs 400 crore (Rs 4 billion) project scheduled to be operational by 2008.

The West Bengal government has already invited chip giants such as Intel, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, Cadence, Synopsis and Sequence to work at the centre.

"The Indian Design Centre would throw open employment opportunities for close to 7500 professionally qualified people," Das added.  In the present scenario, there are close to 130 chip design centres in India of which 67 per cent are based in Bangalore.