Ascendas to build second stage of tech park in Bangalore

Bangalore, Apr 10 (UNI) Ascendas, Asia's leading business space provider, will take up the next phase of its flagship project International Tech Park Bangalore (ITPB) at Whitefield near the city at a cost of Rs 790 crore.

Announcing this at a function to mark the tenth anniversary of the ITPB project, Ascendas President and CEO Chong Siak Ching said the park, which pioneered plug-and-play IT infrastructure, jointly owned with Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB), housed 130 top international and Indian companies and 20,000 people were working out of it.

As part of the anniversary celebrations, 'Navigator', the sixth complex in the park with four lakh sqft area that could accommodate another 4,000 employees, was inaugurated by Singapore Education Minister and Second Minister for Finance Tharman Shanmugaratnam.

Congratulating the two partners, Ascendas and KIADB, Mr Shanmugaratnam said building the IT Park was a bold step taken by the two entities. The project was first mooted by former Prime Ministers of India and Singapore, P V Narasimha Rao and Goh Chok Tong, in 1992. It was a G-to-G project, reflecting the warm economic ties between the two countries.

''First it was thought that it was going to be a loss making proposition due to the huge investment involved. However, the State Government and the Singapore company have proved that it was a risk well taken and well executed by the rate of success the IT park had achieved. This had led to similar parks developed by Ascendas in Hyderabad and Chennai, apart from the Dalian coast in Northeast China,'' he said.

Ms Ching said the company, which started operations in 1997, had played a catalyst role in the growth of IT parks in India. This park had been conferred the World Teleport Property of the Year by New York-based Intelligent Community forum in 2002.

The six sprawling buildings in the park, built at a cost of Rs 970 crore, offered three million sqft of customised built-to-suit space for its clients. The second phase on a 26 acre plot adjoining ITPB would have over three million sqft space progressively.

UNI