IANS

Kolkata, Sep 17: The West Bengal government Thursday invited IT majors Wipro and Infosys to start new centres at Rajarhat on the northeastern fringes of this city and promised to give 45 acres of land to each of the companies.

"I'm proposing today (Thursday), through the media, that we are ready to give 45 acres of land each to Wipro and Infosys. If they agree to the proposal, they can come and immediately take possession of the land and start new centres," Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee told a press conference at the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) state headquarters here.

"These companies can create 16,000 jobs in two years. I already had a talk with my cabinet colleagues, IT Minister Debesh Das, Housing Development Minister Gautam Deb and others about the proposal. We will start talking to the companies. The price of the land will be negotiated with them," Bhattacharjee said, adding that the land will be given on lease to both the IT giants.

On the infrastructure, he said that Rajarhat area already had housing, market complexes and road facilities.

"Now the state government will talk to these companies with the proposal. We can immediately hand over the proposed land to them (Wipro and Infosys).

"A few months back we'd identified land near Vedic Village area to set up an IT township there. But we didn't have any idea that they were acquiring land with muscle power and also with the help of some anti-social elements. Some unfortunate things also happened there... I was little upset with that," the chief minister said.

He said that the state government immediately dropped the project and decided not to go ahead with it as it was not morally correct, following the trouble that erupted over Vedic Reality - a joint venture between the private party and state's key IT agency Webel.

The proposed IT township at Rajarhat near Salt Lake had become controversial following allegations that land sharks - allegedly backed by promoters of Vedic Realty - had been involved in land acquisitions.

The state government depended on Vedic Realty to get land for the 1,600-acre IT project.

Both Infosys and Wipro had sought 90 acres from the state government for their ventures. ITC Infotech was also eyeing space in the IT hub.

Bhattacharjee said the land was already with the state government and they would just have to change the land map at Rajarhat slightly to accommodate the IT players.