After months of glitch and uncertainty over the issue of exorbitant land price, both Infosys and Wipro Technologies ironed out the differences with West Bengal government on Thursday and signed MoUs with the authorities for putting up state-of-the-art facilities at a proposed 1200 acre IT SEZ close to Rajarhat near here.

Infosys will be pumping in about Rs 500 cr for setting up its maiden development centre in Bengal that is likely to generate close to 5000 employment in the first phase, Infy CEO S Gopalakrishnan told reporters here at the state secretariat.

“We have signed an MoU with the state IT Department early this month and decided to invest Rs 500 crore and recruit a workforce of 5,000 in the first phase,” Mr Gopalakrishnan said after meeting Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee here.

“It will be multi-technology and multi-service development centre and would be 11th centre,” he said. Both Infy and Wipro have been given 90 acre land each in the SEZ and Wipro is expected to invest around Rs 500 crore for its second facility near the city. A senior Wipro delegation met the chief minister and firmed up the plans.

Questions remain

However, none of the officials from Infy and Wipro could spell out when the facilities are expected to come up as the IT SEZ is to clear some more hurdles. It has been nearly two years since Infy had expressed interest to invest in West Bengal, but high prices of land quoted by the state government put off the Infy biggies. “We are very excited to announce our intention to set up a presence in Kolkata. We are impressed with the efforts of the state government in attracting such investments. With its bright talent pool, West Bengal is poised to become an important IT destination,” Mr Gopalakrishnan said.