IT major Tata Consultancy Services has acknowledged Lucknow as a premium IT-BPO hub in Uttar Pradesh. Jayant Krishna, Principal Consultant, TCS said that Lucknow has been listed as one of the ‘challenger’ locations in the Nasscom-AT Kearney Study as the city has a huge potential to emerge as an IT-BPO hotspot. The company has requested the Uttar Pradesh government to stimulate the IT industry of the state.

TCS has its global delivery operations based in Lucknow and according to Jayant Krishna TCS-Lucknow has low attrition, high employee satisfaction, strong process rigour and high customer satisfaction. He also stated that the city has abundance of talent and the space rentals are half of those in the NCR. These factors make Lucknow an excellent business case. He also pointed out the need for the state government to start a specialized IT SEZ in the city.

“The tragedy of Uttar Pradesh is that its IT story starts and ends with Noida. While saturation levels have been reached there, the need is to identify a Tier-II city. While we are yet to identify and develop an alternative Tier-II city, all other states of the country have already done that. What is needed is that the government must stimulate IT growth. All basic ingredients are already present,” he said.

Infrastructure and Industrial Development Commissioner, Anoop Mishra admitted that the state government has not taken much initiative to promote IT in the city. He suggested that the best way is to get a major private developer to set an IT SEZ in Lucknow. “Some companies are keen on setting up an IT SEZ in Lucknow and we are in discussions with them. Something on this will surely materialize soon,” he added.

“We are also in discussions with major BPO players. In fact, one of the largest players is keen on setting up operations in Lucknow,” Mishra stated.

Lucknow was awarded a ‘challenger’ status, the best category after the top 7 existing IT destinations, in the ‘Location Roadmap for IT-BPO Growth: Assessment of 50 Leading Cities’ report. Lucknow ranks high, owing to its intrinsic appeal as an IT/ITES destination. The study was conducted by Nasscom and AT Kearney on the potential of 50 cities across India for setting up IT-ITES operations.