Kolkata banks on Karnik for Satyam facility

KOLKATA: State IT minister Debesh Das couldn’t hide his excitement at former Nasscom president Kiran Karnik being appointed Satyam chairman on Friday.

The reason: Karnik’s elevation has brightened Kolkata’s prospects of finally getting Satyam to set up a facility here. “We know him (Karnik) very well and am confident that with him at the helm, the Kolkata project would be fast-tracked,” Das told TOI.

“The other benefit that we can derive is that there would finally be an end to all speculation about the company giving the city the go-by after showing an interest initially,” he added. Das, however, did not elaborate on how soon the government intends to broach the Kolkata issue with Karnik but dropped enough hints to suggest that he would do it while the iron is still hot.

Karnik, who was instrumental in getting Nasscom to establish a presence in the city, has always been an ardent champion of Bengal’s ability to make it big in the IT space because of its abundant human resources and low operational costs. It was following Karnik’s suggestion as Nasscom president that the state got down to the task of developing Siliguri as an alternative IT destination in Bengal.

“Kolkata has several strengths and we will look forward to any discussions with the minister,” Karnik told TOI on Friday. Although Satyam was allotted 2.77 acres at Salt Lake’s Sector V many years back, the company is yet to start operations there.

The MoU between Satyam and Webel for setting up the Kolkata facility was signed on January 30, 2004, in the presence of then Satyam chairman B Ramalinga Raju and chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee in Hyderabad. The foundation stone for the Sector V project was laid on February 24, 2006.

Satyam had originally announced that its proposed facility at Salt Lake would be able to employ 2000 associates . Although these plans never took off, the company had been repeatedly assuring the state government that it was “serious” about Kolkata. Down the line, Satyam, however, had wanted more land to set up an IT special economic zone.