In keeping with its image as a Hitech city, Hyderabad is soon to have the biggest facility by GE within India. At present the company is engaged in constructing its largest 720,000 sq. ft facility at the Uppal area on the outskirts of Hyderabad. "The facility will be ready by the end of March and it is going to be our third site within Hyderabad as we already have more than 4,500 people working at two of our offices located at Hitech city," said, Pramod Bhasin, President & CEO GECIS Global & President – GE Capital India. He was in Hyderabad to speak at the IITF at Gitex Hyderabad 2003.

Within India, GE has a total workforce of about 11,000 professionals with Delhi having the maximum number of employees at 5,700 based at three locations around Gurgaon area, Bangalore has 650 employees and another facility is located in Jaipur with 150 employees. "Running an ITES or a BPO center is a cost game and the time has come for players like us to move out of big and crowded class cities to cheaper cities and this is one of the reasons why we have chosen to locate our biggest center over here. If we look at working cost -- Hyderabad is at Rs 20 per hour and cities like Mumbai are at around Rs 50. Also the rent space is available in Hyderabad at Rs 24 per sq. ft while the same is Rs 97 for Mumbai or bigger cities, so it makes all the sense to come over here," he added.

The largest center for GE dubbed as the ‘Uppal Mega Project’ would be spread across 27 acres of land and would be capable enough to accommodate more than 5,000 employees. The center would provide all the processing capability as well as learning and residential facility to the employees of the company. "In the coming years, we have to develop more and more cities like Hyderabad as there is a good amount of competition being thrown open by countries like China. I think Hyderabad has got a mix of everything -- it has entertainment facilities, a cosmopolitan attitude, which is picking up, a good image outside the country and all this contributes to attract outside management talent," he explained.

(CNS)