Infosys plans to hire 25,000 employees across geographies for which it has set aside Rs 1,600 crore to invest in training and infrastructure for FY07.

TCS plans to add 30,500 during FY07 while Satyam expects to hire 12,000 and Wipro might lap up over 15,000 engineers.

The expansion in manpower would take the total strength of the IT sector to around 2.29 million in the current fiscal from around 1.29 million now. NASCOM estimates the manpower strength of the total IT industry to touch 4.3 million by 2009-10.

The IT and ITeS sector is estimated to spend close to $2.6 billion over the next three years in training people for this industry. Also Indian IT companies have plans to invest in facilities in SEZs and tier III cities.

Infosys has plans to increase its office space by 50 per cent -- creating 5.3 million square feet of Grade A office space that can seat around 25,000 persons.

It already has 10 million sq ft office space for 52,715 employees. It will hire 1,000 people in China in FY07 and is building capacity for the 5000 people it plans to hire there over the next five years.

TCS expects to add 15,000, about half of its projected 30,500 hires, from campuses. At the beginning of FY06, it had planned to add 10,000-odd employees to its rolls. It ended up adding more than double – 21,140 to be precise.

TCS currently has 66,480 employees. The company has signed a MoU with the Maharashtra government to acquire 50 acres of land to develop a state-of-the-art development facility in Hinjewadi Phase III in Pune, a part of an MIDC-promoted Special Economic Zone.

TCS is expected to invest up to Rs 500 crore in the facility to create a capacity of 5,000 seats. Infosys has outlined nearly $400 million (Rs 1,600 crore) for expansion in FY07. Wipro is spending Rs 1,300 crore while Satyam has planned to spend Rs 400 crore in 2006-07.

The four frontline IT companies are flush with funds with total reserves of Rs 23,000 crore as on March 31, 2006.

They have Rs 7,400 crore worth cash in hand for capital expenditure program with Infosys Technologies (Rs 3,279 crore), Satyam (3,053 crore) and Wipro (Rs 886 crore) are high on the cash list. These companies have spent Rs 4,000 crore on fixed assets over the last two years.

( www.business-standard.com)