VIJAYAWADA: HCL, which plans to have its own building for its Vijayawada centre by June 2018, aims to train and recruit 5,000 local candidates in the next five years. About, 1,200 local students will be trained in the first year.
The IT giant is now adopting the back to the roots strategy. It wants to see several IT employees, including its own who hail from the capital region, returning back to work in Vijayawada. HCL has around 1,500 people who hail from Vijayawada and Guntur.
“There is enough talent in the region and the quality of manpower is obvious as many people in IT in other places in the country and even abroad hail from this region. Apart from attracting our own employees hailing from the region working elsewhere, we will focus on developing 5,000 strong HCL centre here. It will be the only one in the State,” HCL vice-president Srimathi Shivashankar said.
The teams from HCL will be talent scouting the colleges within 35 km radius of Vijayawada and it will start right from class XII. “We are into research and development, product development, IT services, BPO and all of these will be commencing in Vijayawada simultaneously,” VV Appa Rao, vice-president, HCL Corporate, explained.
Rao, who hails from Vijayawada, has been in IT profession for more than three decades, sees it is time for Vijayawada to grow as IT hub and says the climate is right for it now.
“It is safe, but has to be made safer for women employees. Given the odd working hours, due to the round the clock nature of the job, it is paramount for the State government to bring in place a system and infrastructure that helps women employees feel safe and secure, which will prompt other prospective investors in the sector also to eye the region as potential business hub,” he told Express.
HCL has developed two courses — a six-month course for engineering graduates with three months classroom and three months practical training and one-year programme for non-engineering graduates and class XII students with nine months classroom and three months practical training. The cost of the course (both) will be `2.34 lakh.