By our correspondent, 16 November 2013

Sleepy town of Gandhinagar, located at around half an hour distance from Ahmedabad is mainly populated by government employees and the relatives of government employees. While in Ahmedabad you can find some food joints opened till 1.00 am, the town of Gandhinagar sleeps at 9 or 10 pm.

But the new Garima Park campus of Tata Consultancy Service(TCS) is all set to make change to the culture of Gandhinagar.

The new campus located between Dholakuva circle and SG highway will have 10,000 employees in total. Of them 2,500 have already arrived here. Most of them are from other states. Majority of them in 20s/30s age group with earning of above Rs. 1 lakh per month.

As Garima Park campus has no provision of residential facility for such a big number of employees, the rented property market in the areas near the Garima Park is booming. In last few months, 2,500 people have arrived and taken flat units on rent.

Some construction companies like Swagat Infrastructure active in this area are promoting their new towers with attached scheme of guaranteed revenue from rent.

The new influx of thousands of high-paid outsider techies is changing the atmosphere already. Some restaurants have extended their closing time in the evening. Shops in and around Infocity area have purchased more stock to satisfy the need of new highly-paid young class.

On flip side, the locals fear that addition of a new highly-paid class of around 10,000 people and their families to Gandhinagar may make everything costlier in new Gandhinagar area.

“These are young chaps, some boys and girls make pair and live together in same unit. Some have habit to drink. Some are transferred to sleepy part of Gandhinagar from happening city like Bangalore, you can imagine Gandhinagar’s impact on them and their impact on Gandhinagar,” a local said.

Chandraskhekharan explains the scale of Gandhinagar Garima Park

At inaugural function of TCS Garima Park in Gandhinagar in presence of Gujarat Chief Minister Shri Narendra Modi and Tata group Chairman Cyrus Mistry today morning, the Chief Executive Officer(CEO) of Tata Consultancy Services(TCS) Shri Chandrashekharan said that with new facility of Garima Park, the company will have opportunity to add additional 10,000 people to its existing 7,000 associates workforce in Gujarat. He said the new facility will pave the way to bring in the world class company to Gujarat and also build world class systems. The Chief Minister later in his speech described TCS Garima Park as second top campus in capital Gandhinagar after state secretariat in terms of number of employees.

“This facility has been built across 25.5 acres of land with the built-up area of 150 million square ft and can accommodate about 10,000 people. Today most of the employees we have in the state are operating out of other facilities both in Ahmedabad and also in Vadodara. Now with this facility we will have opportunity to add additional 10,000 people. We have been able to attract a lot of professionals. Over the last couple of years we have added 5,000 people from the state and they are working either here or in other parts of India and abroad. But I am pretty sure that this facility will pave the way to bring in the world class company to Gujarat and also build world class systems,” Shri Chandrashekharan said.

“TCS also runs a competition across all the young people on programming. We call it Code vista, and 10s of thousands of people across nation compete. From the state of Gujarat, over 5,843 young people participated and it is creditable to say that three teams of two people each made it to the final, and among the final winners one team was also from the state of Gujarat. So we have the talent and I am pretty sure that with all the support of the govt and energy of all the TCS people it will be a world class TCS development center, ” he added.

On Gujarat operations of TCS, Shri Chandrashekharan said, “TCS has been partnering with the state of Gujarat since 1996 and has a very strong presence in the state. Today we have grown to be 7000 associated in the state with the strong growing presence. We have a very strong relationship with the academic institution in the states. 29 universities/colleges are part of our academic interface programme. TCS has been conducting faculty development programmes under the last 12 months have done 19 of them touching 600 professors. And TCS does a number of students engagement programmes in last 12 months many such programmes including internship touching over 3,000 students across the state are completed.”

He further said, “TCS is strategic partner with the govt of Gujarat having executed a large number of programmes including the police system, the integrated financial management system for the govt, the voting system and also many other systems including digigov and public enterprises including GEB. It is a state where we enjoy good footprint and play important role for digitization of govt.”

Chandrashekharan praised Gujarat Chief Minister’s vision in terms of applying technology with holistic approach.