PTI+UNI

Bangalore, Jan 12: Constraints in acquiring land is hindering software major Infosys Technologies from expanding further in Bangalore, Nandan M Nilekani, chief executive officer and managing director said on Wednesday.

Speaking after announcing the company's third quarter results for the current fiscal, he said Bangalore continued to be an attractive location for expansion, over and above its current strength of over 16,000 employees.

He said due to constraints in acquiring land, Infosys was looking beyond this high tech city for expansion.

While Mysore, where Infosys set up the largest global training centre had the opportunity to grow, the company was not able to get requisite land in Mangalore and Bangalore, he added.

Mohandas Pai, chief financial officer, said only 2,500 of the total 16,500 seats added in recent times have gone to Bangalore, where it began operations in a humble way in 1981.

Infosys Q3 net up 31% to Rs 649 crore

"When the capacity is increased to 58,000 seats, about 18,000 could be in Bangalore," he added. "In the last 4-5 years, the share of Bangalore has been coming down...we are growing faster in other centres", he said.

The global technology services firm's executives said improvement in road and traffic management has not kept pace with the city's rapid development on the industrial front. "People want lesser travel time".

According to Pai, the company is not in a position to expand at its current location due to traffic problems on Hosur Road. "We have to go elsewhere. But we don't have land to expand. Nobody has given us land".

Nilekani said Infosys was also facing problems in Chandigarh where it had planned to expand its operations with strength of over 4500 employees.

The proposed Special Economic Zone is yet to come up there, he said. The plan in West Bengal has not materialised and Infosys looks forward to opening its centre in Kolkata next year.