Calcutta, June 15: Tata Consultancy Service (TCS) has big plans for Calcutta.

TCS chief executive officer S. Ramadorai placed the company’s expansion curriculum in Bengal before chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee at Writers’ Buildings today.

The company is scheduled to complete construction of its second building at Salt Lake’s Sector V by March 2005.

Ramadorai is also learnt to have told the chief minister that TCS aims to push up its headcount from the existing 2,600 to 5,000 by July 2005.

“They also discussed how information technology (IT) can be used more effectively in rolling out various e-governance initiatives of the Bengal government,” said the source, on conditions of anonymity.

The IT bellwether is working with the Bengal government for the past few years on various e-governance projects, ranging from digitisation of data to facilitating citizen-government interaction. Later in the day, Ramadorai also called on state IT minister Manab Mukherjee at the department’s Camac Street office and discussed how the state can translate its potential into performance in IT and IT enabled services (ITES).

During his meeting with Mukherjee, Ramadorai reportedly said the government must intensify efforts to increase the number of international flights to Calcutta. “He also added that the government should address the issue of manpower creation to meet the demand of the expanding IT industry,” said an IT department official.

After assuring Ramadorai, who is also vice-chairman of the National Association for Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), of initiating dialogue with the central government for better international flight connectivity with Calcutta, the minister placed a wish list before him.

Mukherjee requested Ramadorai to convince Nasscom officials to hold its national convention — to showcase the potential of the East —in Calcutta.

He also sought help for the government to pitch for a submarine cable landing station for more effective communication of data and voice, in Bengal. “The city’s distance from the nearest cable landing station is over 500 km and this pushes up the operation cost. If this can be addressed, the city’s rankings as an attractive IT destination will surely go up,” the official added.