AP’s ‘land at 99p/acre’ offer lands Cognizant’s new campus in Vizag
Along with IT major Cognizant, these companies are expected to generate about 41,700 jobs.
Cognizant
VISAKHAPATNAM: Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Friday laid the foundation for a Cognizant IT campus and eight others companies here, entailing a total investment of Rs 3,700 crore.
Along with IT major Cognizant, these companies are expected to generate about 41,700 jobs.
“Cognizant is going to invest Rs 1,583 crore to establish the IT campus in Visakhapatnam, which is expected to provide employment to 8,000 people,” a release said. The government has allotted over 21 acres to Cognizant at Kapuluppada IT Hills in the port city, and the firm will construct a world-class Artificial Intelligence (AI) and a digital transformation IT campus in three phases there, it said.
Until the first phase is completed, Cognizant will operate temporarily from Mahati Fintech Building in Rushikonda IT Park, Hill-2, focusing on AI, machine learning, digital engineering, and cloud solutions.
IT Minister Nara Lokesh inaugurated the temporary campus, which will accommodate 1,000 employees. Other companies for which the CM laid the foundation stone include Tech Thammina, Satva Developers and Imaginnovate Tech Solutions India.
Addressing a meeting of Cognizant employees and executives following the foundation stone laying ceremony, the chief minister called on the $34 billion IT major to expand its workforce to one lakh in Vizag in four to five years and promised to fulfil all its needs. “Not just 5,000 employees or 10,000. You should start with 25,000 employees, and go to 50,000 and one lakh to become the biggest centre for Cognizant in India,” said Naidu.
Highlighting that Vizag is growing fast with IT companies, he reminded that Google is setting up a $15 billion data centre there and promised to make the city ‘pollution-free’ by incorporating the Net Zero concept
Underlining that offering land at just Rs 0.99 per acre has turned out to be a game-changer, he recalled that a similar strategy was followed for Tata Motors’ Nano car manufacturing plant in Gujarat.
