India's leading software company Wipro Technologies on Monday said it would recruit 2500 professionals for its upcoming software development centre at Kolkata to be operational from June 2004.

"We will be recruiting about 2500 IT professionals for our fifth major SDC in India, the physical structure of which is likely to be ready by the first quarter of next year. Eighty five per cent of the total would be fresh recruitment," Wipro President (Enterprise Solutions) Sudip Banerjee said in Kolkata.

The first phase of the project was likely to be operational by June next year, he said, adding in the first phase about 1000 professionals would be recruited and the number would increase gradually.

The project, to be set up at a cost of about Rs 50 crore (Rs 500 million), excluding the expenditure on systems, would be complete in three phases.

Banerjee said the SDC would initially be an execution centre for existing business.

"We will also do some IT-enabled services work here. We intend to build a completely integrated complex with unique features and enough space for recreation at Kolkata," he said.

It would be spread over 12 acres in Salt Lake area with over 250,000 square feet of software blocks, he added.

To a query, Banerjee said the Bangalore SDS accounted for about 60 per cent of the total export revenue of about $475 million last year.

"We think that over the next few years when our newly set up Pune and Chennai centres are fully operational and the one at Kolkata comes up, the share of Bangalore might come down to 50 per cent in total export revenue."

Asked whether it was planned to set up any new SDC in the country, Banerjee said as of now there was none.

To another question, he said, Wipro was doing a lot of work in life sciences over the last nine months.

Wipro, which purchased land for SDC in Kolkata in early 2001, began construction this January.

He also had a word of praise for the state government and the West Bengal Electronics Industry Development Corporation Limited.