Mansoft, an IT solutions provider and a wholly-owned arm of Doha-based $400 million Mannai Corp, has opened its second centre in Pune in a bid to tap the growing event management industry in India.

“We have launched our second resource centre, with 71 information communications technology (ICT), engineers to tap the growing event management business in India and the Gulf region,” Atu Pradhan, managing director of Mansoft, told Financial Chronicle on Wednesday.

Pradhan said the firm’s important task, among others, would be to develop the event management business. “Mannai and Mansoft have experience in this growing business, having supported the IT solutions for the Doha Asian Games in 2006 with leading international players,” he said.

The company, whose income grew by 30 per cent to $275 million in the first half of 2008, is also planning to tie up with others bidding for managing the Commonwealth Youth Games in India slated for October this year. Pradhan said Qatar had been hosting many mega events and his company had been providing IT solutions with effective networking, data centre and management systems.

Globally, the licensing fee for any medium-level sports event was pegged around $200-300 million, depending on the size of the event. Pradhan said the resource centre would develop scalable IT solutions for regional sports and non-sports events in the Gulf region and Asia. "The centre will be engaged in backend development, architecting configuring business solutions and support company’s ambitious growth plan”, he added.