IT services company MindTree plans to double its head count and capacity in its

RELATED ARTICLES For IIT, B-school graduates, job outlook remains bright AI may hire new pilots if pilots don't end strike soon: Ajit US hiring slows, raising worries on recovery Accor to hire over 1,100 employees in India this year

Chennai centre in the next few months. The company has so far spent close to Rs 120 crore at its Mahindra World City facility and infrastructure development will be complete in the next two months, a senior company official said.

“Chennai is an integral part of our plan to reach our goal of joining the billion-dollar club (in revenue) by 2014. We are developing it into a strategic facility almost independent of our Bangalore operations,” said Venkatesan Varadarajan, vice-president and centre head of MindTree.

The centre launched in mid 2008 has a total capacity of over 2,500 employees and is presently at almost half its strength. Over the next 12 months the company will double its headcount in the centre, he added.

This is in contrast to an overall gross headcount addition of 462 during the third quarter of this fiscal. Like other IT firms, MindTree also resorted to belt tightening measures last year. However, Varadarajan asserts that the firm did not retrench employees. It has now announced salary revisions and bonus payouts but the actual increases are yet to be finalised, he added. MindTree had a total strength of 8,127 as of December 31, 2009.

“IT services, research and development and product engineering are key to our Chennai operations. Over one third of the capacity addition will be in testing. If we beat our expectations, we will expand further within the facility. We have another piece of land here,” Varadarajan said.