Till yesterday, 20,000 members of the city’s tech township had nowhere to go. But from next week, the techhies can take a break and eat, shop, sit, sip and browse in the Salt Lake Electronics Complex (Saltlec), any time of day or night.
A one-stop, 24-x-7 shop in the city’s IT hub, unveiled on Poila Baisakh, promises to change the way Salt Lake’s Sector V plays at work.
Multi-cuisine food counters, cassettes, CDs, consumer goods, conferencing facilities and more will just be a click or a call away at the physical-cum-virtual store, Fingertips.
The need gap Fingertips is aiming to plug is gaping. “It has always been felt that Sector V lacked basic infrastructure facilities. We rolled out the project to bridge the gap and improve the lifestyle of the people working here,” said Biswajit Chaudhuri, chief executive officer and one of the main promoters of Fingertips Solutions.
In order to customise the solution to meet the needs of the professionals working in the IT and IT-enabled services industry in the area, the fledgling company conducted a survey.
An overwhelming 89 per cent of the respondents found the facilities in the zone inadequate. Purchasing power was gauged by the fact that 46 per cent of the workforce in the 170 companies in the area had an annual income between Rs 2 and Rs 4 lakh.
“Over 69 per cent of the Sector V population is young and has a high disposable income. They want the best of facilities even in the middle of the night. The survey shows that 23 per cent of the people work here on night shifts and we expect that number to grow with companies like Wipro coming to town,” said Chaudhuri, explaining why goods and services would be delivered round the clock.
The company is investing around Rs 1.75 crore, with support from the West Bengal Finance Corporation in the first phase, and has plans to pump in more money in the near future to create full-fledged conferencing and business centre infrastructure.
Plans are also on to replicate the model in Rajarhat and in cities like Hyderabad, Gurgaon and Bangalore.
To cater to customer needs — be it cosmetics or computer peripherals — Fingertips has set up a call centre, where orders can be placed over phone or on-line.
Besides tying up with partners like Computer Exchange, Coca-Cola and MusicWorld, it is also in the process of roping in other associates to broaden the basket of services and include medical facilities, travel tips and tax solutions.
“Anyone who is connected to Sector V — whether here or in the US — can avail of our services,” explained Chaudhuri.
Services from the physical section of the store will be fully operational in a week’s time and the infrastructure for the virtual section will be put in place within the next three months.
Tollywood actor Rituparna Sengupta, who starred in the inaugural function for Fingertips on Wednesday and has been urged to join the project as a partner, said: “It’s a unique concept and I think it will take off.”
