The story
Salt Lake's Sector V was set aside as an electronics and IT zone, and large Indian and global IT companies opened delivery centres there from the late 1990s. New Town, the planned township next door, added IT parks and the Bengal Silicon Valley hub as Sector V filled up. Kolkata's universities and engineering colleges supply graduates, and costs are lower than in Bengaluru or Pune.
In numbers
The state's IT department lists 22 IT parks, 1 hardware park and 2 electronics manufacturing clusters.
Monthly Administrative Report, August 2023 — Department of IT & Electronics, Government of West Bengal · 2023
Ways in for a newcomer
- IT support, cloud and managed services for eastern India's MSMEs
- Small software and app studios serving overseas clients
- Facility services (transport, canteen, housekeeping) for IT campuses
- Training institutes for IT skills
Problems the cluster faces
- Vacant office space and slower hiring than southern hubs
- Talent moving to Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune
- Few large product companies
Businesses to start here
IT Support and Managed Services →Mobile App / Software Development Studio →E-Learning Portal (Online Courses) →