The chairman and managing director of Quatrro BPO Solutions Pvt Ltd, Raman Roy, who sold Spectramind to Wipro at $150 million, said on Wednesday that though West Bengal has the potential, economic benefits are not very encouraging for an entrepreneur, who wants to set up a centre here.
Quatrro has presence in three Indian cities–Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai–and in nine countries, including India. The company employs three thousand people and a majority of them are based in India.
The state government, represented by IT minister Debesh Das, contested Roy’s view and said West Bengal was offering one of the best fiscal and non-fiscal incentives among the states.
Das said apart from training subsidies, which is Rs 20,000 per employee, the state government was offering incubation centres and venture funds for new initiatives.
“These incentives benefit all kinds of IT and BPO companies, new and old,” said Das.
Roy said one and a half years back, the state government had shown Quatrro Durgapur and Siliguri as possible sites to start operations. “But we did not like the places as there are infrastructure issues,” said Roy.
For Roy, Chennai offers the lowest salary for engineers, while the fibre optic connectivity cost is one of the lowest in Mumbai and setting up a centre in Delhi is historical.
“I went to the outskirts of Shanghai, where the Chinese government offered me 2 lakh sqft at zero cost for the first five years of operation,” said Roy.
Roy said that he needs fiscal and non-fiscal incentives, which would provide real economic benefits, before deciding to come to Bengal. “The state should spend more money on IT education and infrastructure building.”