Kolkata: Software exports from Bengal grew from Rs 8,000 crore to over Rs 40,000 crore over the last 15 years, said Shubhanjan Das, secretary of the IT and Electronics department.
Addressing the 10th edition of the Tech Meet organised by ASSOCHAM on Friday, Das said the state’s IT sector was poised for a major expansion, with investments of around Rs 30,000 crore lined up in the 250-acre Bengal Silicon Valley.“Bengal’s IT footprint has expanded from Kolkata to towns like Siliguri and Durgapur. The state-run Siliguri Data Centre has high infrastructure, and we want private players to use it for AI training and model building.
The govt is open to collaborations with private firms for the growth of this segment. Bengal now ranks sixth in India in terms of data centre capacity, with 11 private data centres already operational,” said Das.“Any expansion proposal will be welcomed, and we will make sure projects take off smoothly,” he assured during the meet, which focused on AI, data centres and global capability centres (GCC) as growth drivers of the IT industry in the state.The Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), an autonomous society under the Centre’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, is coming up with a data centre, which is likely to be operational this year, the secretary stated.Manjit Nayak, director of STPI, Kolkata, said the state govt’s upcoming GCC policy would make Kolkata a top GCC destination in the country. He said, “We support more than 2,000 start-ups in various ways, including financially.”At the meet, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) received the IT Ratna award for the highest software exports from Bengal.Sushil Mohta, chairman of World Trade Center (WTC), Salt Lake, stated Bengal was emerging as a strong destination for GCCs due to its academic institutions, deep talent pool and improving infrastructure. “We need to market ourselves better and showcase our achievements to position Bengal as a GCC destination, particularly in Europe,” he said.
