Tata Consultancy Services, which employs nearly 2.85 lakh people, said it would set up the world’s largest corporate training center in Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, overtaking Infosys’s Mysore training campus in size.
The 6.1 million square feet facility will be able to train 15,000 people at the same time.
Infosys has a Rs 260 crore corporate training centre in Mysore that trains 12,000 employees every year.
It is expected that all freshers recruited across the country would be sent to the Thiruvananthapuram facility for training that would last for several weeks, before they are put on the bench.
The center can train 50,000 people annually, TCS said. TCS currently has around 300,000 employees, mostly in India, and expects to add about 50,000 employees in the current financial year.
The decision by TCS is likely to be a major boost for IT in Kerala, where people are sensitive about pollution and environmental degradation in general. As a result, traditional industries, such as manufacturing, have not taken off in Kerala, but the state is a promising sourcing hub for non-polluting industries like IT.
The proposed TCS Learning Campus in Thiruvananthapuram will be located on a 97-acre property in the Technopark area of the city. The campus will be built over an area ofand will feature residential accommodation for professionals and faculty at the center.
N. Chandrasekaran, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, TCS said, “TCS has been present in Thiruvananthapuram since 1997 and since then it has been the hub of our global learning and development efforts. The TCS Learning Campus will be the new benchmark for corporate learning worldwide and this iconic facility will produce world class professionals to meet the future needs of the IT industry.”
“We are grateful to the Kerala government officials and other stakeholders whose energy and commitment has helped make this project a reality today.” he added.
The project will boost the local economy in the region and during the construction period alone, it is expected that this project will provide direct employment to over 2,000 skilled and unskilled local people for a period of 4 years. A part of the project will be the skill development programs run by TCS to upgrade the skills of local youth and facilitate opportunities to work in the construction project, through contractors.
TCS is the single largest private sector employer in India and spends over 15 million hours on learning and development programs for its employees every year. Over the last 5 years till date, the company has trained over 143,000 IT professionals in India and abroad.
The company’s learning programs include its award-winning Initial Learning Program for fresh graduate trainees as well as numerous Competency Development and Leadership Development Programs for middle and senior executives in the company.
The proposed TCS Learning Campus will provide a natural, contemporary vision for education by linking elegant design, ecological thinking, and modern technology, TCS claimed. “The integrated design has been organized around a centralized, iconic Training Facility with collaboration rooms and libraries on the high plateau at the middle of the site with residential and support buildings around it. The master plan of the campus, inspired by the rich regional heritage, incorporates the local architecture influences and used local materials in construction. It incorporates several green concepts such as zero waste discharge with 100% recycling of sewage, energy efficient systems, large area of green cover, rain water harvesting systems and integrated building management systems,” the company said.