Growing into the mould

L.N. Revathy

ACOUPLE of months ago, when I met the Executive Director of the PSG-STEP (Science and Technology Entrepreneurial Park), Raghavendra Prasad, he was anxious to know what attracted mega IT players to Bhubaneshwar, while Coimbatore had a lot more to offer - in terms of infrastructural facility, manpower availability, accessibility and a wonderful climate, to top it all.

But when I met him in the last week or so, he had a different story to tell.

Prasad was happy that the PSG-STEP had started to expand, had started to grow. Not that any major player had set up shop in this secondary city. But the presence of a US-based company and a UK firm in the campus seemed to have made all the difference. He found the going good; the occupancy rate at PSG-STEP was full.

Though the CII has been promoting this textile hub as the ''ideal IT destination'' for some time now, no big player emerged and entrepreneurs were desperately looking for MNCs and Fortune 500 companies to make a start here. The textile doom, followed by the bomb blasts that rocked the city about four years ago, literally drove prospective players to greener pastures.

But this did not deter Vyosoft Technologies DG, a sister concern of Point Solutions in the UK, from eyeing IT-centric cities. According to Dave Green, Director, Vyosoft, ''Coimbatore is far more cost-effective in terms of man-power availability when compared to metropolitan cities or major IT destinations.'' The company will cater to the offshore outsourcing needs of units in the UK.

''This arrangement is cost-effective as it allows us to provide high-quality software and Web-based development services at a fraction of the cost you would normally pay, leading to savings of up to 80 per cent in some circumstances,'' says Green.

The STEP is keen on expansion though a number of IT parks still remain a non-starter. Elsewhere in the city, in a small hamlet called Saravanampatti, a US-based company, Prolease US, recently joined hands with KGISL, a local IT player. According to Bala Ramamoorthy, CEO of Prolease US, the facilities at KGISL were incomparable to the rest that the company had screened when it decided to tie the knot. ''We cannot think of a company having an earth station in its very campus, even in the US. We have not compromised on anything by joining hands with KGISL,'' he says.

Though Prolease had earlier spread its wings to China, before setting foot in India, its experience has shown that the English-speaking talent in India is matchless when compared to China.

With two STPI earth stations, one at PSG-STEP and the other at the KGISL campus at Saravanampatti, Coimbatore has finally been able to lure MNCs, if not the Indian IT giants.

Besides big corporate houses, a number of small players have also emerged in the last couple of months offering simple jobs which could supplement the family income. This is turning out to be a lucrative proposition. Simple assignments in data processing, data storing and data warehousing have lured both young and old. While the retired lot are craving to be tech- savvy, the college students enjoy making that extra pie -- ''an earn while you learn'' opportunity.

The developments in the last couple of months signal that secondary cities such as Tiruchirapalli, Madurai, Salem and Coimbatore are emerging potential IT hubs. There is no looking back.

lnr@thehindu.co.in

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