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Infosys begins work on Rs 1.35-billion Pune centre

It was a homecoming for the company that started out in the city's Model Colony with Rs 10,000 for capital and an apartment at Model Colony.

T O D A Y

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"Today Infosys has returned to Pune with a market capitalisation of Rs 5,000 crore (Rs 50 billion)," said Narayana Murthy as he broke ground last week for the new campus that is coming up at the Pune Infotech Park at Hinjawadi.

Infosys Technologies will be creating a 334,000-square foot centre to accommodate 2,300 professionals who would generate Rs 5 billion in exports.

The Pune facilities would be the biggest after Bangalore. The project would be completed in two phases. Phase I involves an investment of Rs 600 million and should be complete by September 30. This would create a 167,000-square foot facility to house 1,200 professionals.

This facility would be fully operational by 2000. Infosys' development centre is already operational in Pune from a leased premises.

"Pune is doing a lot of mission-critical work and handling Japanese and European projects. It accounts for 10 to 15 per cent of Infosys' revenues," said Nandan M Nilekani.

Forty-three-year-old Nilekani is set to take over as managing director, president and chief operating officer with effect from March 31.

Nilekani will be in charge of all operations of the company. He will also be chairman of the management council, which is the supreme executive body below the board of directors.

About this decision, Narayana Murthy has said, "As a growing company our operations are becoming more complex and bandwidth is increasing. It is important that younger people get opportunity to add value."

Nilekani announced the creation of the 'Infosys Fellowship' for three-year higher education or PhD programmes in 13 educational and research institutions in India. Infosys will be giving Rs 600,000 to each of the institutions in the first year.

Three of these institutions are in Maharashtra, including IIT Bombay, the National Centre for Software Technologies in Bombay and the Computer Science department of the University of Pune. There will be two Infosys fellows in each of these institutions.

Chief Secretary P Subramaniam, the chief guest at the Infosys function, has urged government departments at all levels to keep pace with Infosys' schedule and provide infrastructure support.

- Compiled from the Indian media

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