India's fourth largest software services exporter Satyam Computer Services Limited on Saturday inaugurated the company's ninth facility in Hyderabad.

Addressing a press meet after the inauguration, B Ramalinga Raju, chairman of Satyam Computer Services Limited, said that the new facility, Satyam Cyber Space, would house around 1,300 employees.

"The new Rs 75-crore (Rs 750 million) facility would be concentrating on providing the necessary help to the offshore development centres," Raju said.

According to him the trend of offshore outsourcings was increasing over the past few quarters. "Spending on the needs of Information Technology was increasing and that is why the company has raised its revenues for the current financial year," Raju said.

Speaking after the inauguration of the facility, union IT and communications minister Dayanidhi Maran said that the country needs to increase its skilled workforce to keep pace with the growing demand.

"We are currently witnessing the second big wave of IT in the name of business process outsourcing and ITES. The government is presently formulating data protection laws, which will help this sector and we expect the information technology enabled services to generate sizeable employment opportunities," Maran said.

He also said that the government would shortly bring out necessary policy changes to make '.in' domain more popular in the country. Speaking about the sector Maran said that, the country has emerged as the second largest software exporter in the world.

"The sector registered a growth of around 28 per cent to touch $15.9 billion up from $12.4 billion during previous year, this is projected to grow to about $ 20 billion by the end of the current financial year," Maran said.

Speaking on the occasion chief minister of Andhra Pradesh Y S Rajasekhara Reddy said that government would constitute 'think-tanks' for the IT, ITES and computer hardware sectors, comprising of individuals from the government and the industry.

Reddy said that the state government was seeking the help of the central government for the Rs 600 crore (Rs 6 billion) info highway and broadband facilities in rural areas.

Reddy reassured his government's stand for the development of the IT sector.  "We would continue to support the growth of the industry and assure cooperation to companies," he said. We would also like to see it to spread to other cities besides Hyderabad, he added.

"Our government has already allotted the land and helped in giving a bit of the investment to set up STP satellite earth stations in Vijayawada, Tirupati and Warangal. Now I request the union minister to ensure that infrastructure and incubation centres of the STP are set up in these cities," he said.

The facility was constructed by city based- SDE Engineers Limited, an infrastructure company. According to D Suresh, chairman SDE Engineers Limited the total investment that went in to the construction was around Rs 75-crore (Rs 750 million).

"Around 70 per cent of the amount was lent by various financial institutions and the rest was through internal accruals," he said.

The 12-storeyed campus was developed in 191 days and has 2,50,000 sq ft of built up office space and 1,50,000 sq ft three-level parking area.

Suresh said that it was a 'plug and play' center, and all the necessary requirements have been provide.