123Pune.com

A construction slowdown post- Maharashtra Navnirman Sena’s attacks on North Indian labourers in February-March have cost Pune over 3,000 IT jobs.

“We have been diverting our Pune recruits to Chennai and other locations after work on our expansion got stalled due to the MNS attacks. So far, over 3,000 employees selected for Pune operations have been sent to Chennai,” said TV Mohandas Pai, member of the Infosys Technologies board and director (HR) at a press meet in Pune on Monday.

Infosys’ expansion plans were delayed by over six months after a chunk of construction workers fled Pune following the MNS threats and attacks.

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The diversion of IT recruits to Chennai has been operational for a few months now. “The process will continue and we will divert more employees from Pune,” Pai said.

While Infosys has decided to invest another Rs500 crore in its Pune operations and add 13,000 more seats here, it is spending Rs300 crore on construction of four new development centres at its campus in Hinjewadi phase two.

Each of these centres would seat approximately 2,500 employees.

“We currently have 25,700 seats of which 19,000 are working. Another 13,000 would be added in the next two years,” Pai said.

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Once completed, the total headcount in Pune would be over 38,000. Of the 19,000 seats, 14,000 are in the services and 5,000 in BPO jobs.

Infosys has so far invested Rs1,052 crore in Pune which is slated to grow to Rs1,552 crore with the establishment of the new development centres.

In another move, company officials announced the beginning of legal process outsourcing (LPO) operations from the Pune campus. Currently the LPO cell here is the only one in India and employs close to 150 advocates.

“We will scale up operations at the LPO cell but the details are yet to be worked out,” said head of the BPO operations in Pune Meera Inanjaya.
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