Date:16/04/2004 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2004/04/16/stories/2004041601051700.htm

Back A supermarket for Salt Lake tech zone

Our Bureau

Kolkata , April 15

IT is a "solution" for IT and telecom professionals whose workplace is the Salt Lake Electronics Complex - better known as Sector V of Salt Lake — here which houses big names such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, IBM, Cognizant Technologies, Wipro, SkyTech, Netguru India, AirTel, Webel, etc. And the experiment could well be replicated in Hyderabad, Bangalore and Gurgaon.

With a view to making life easier for the "Sector V community" Fingertips Solutions Pvt Ltd has set up a facility to provide household and lifestyle products and services under one roof round the clock, 365 days of the year. The infrastructure at the Salt Lake Electronics Complex here has a physical zone, a virtual zone and a customer-centric call centre. Soon, an e-commerce portal would be added with a view to facilitating online transactions.

According to Mr Biswajit Chaudhuri, CEO of Fingertips Solutions Pvt Ltd, the "physical zone" will house food and provisions, computers accessories & peripherals, CDs, personal products, cosmetics, etc. There will be facilities for holding conferences as well. The "virtual zone" will offer services pertaining to travel planning, transportation, ticketing, event management, conferencing, emergency medical facilities, logistics support for moving household goods, etc.

Speaking to newspersons at the inauguration of the Fingertip's facility here today, Mr Chaudhuri said that the project had been conceived keeping in mind the specific needs of IT and telecom professionals who work in a 24 x 7 x 365 schedule. The West Bengal Financial Corporation has provided a loan of Rs 60 lakh for the first phase of the project, which will entail an outlay of Rs 1.75 crore. The West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation may pick up an equity stake in the company. Talks in this regard are underway, according to Mr Chaudhuri.