Dismissing the charges that Bangalore is losing investments due to infrastructure hurdles, director of Software Technology Parks in India-Bangalore, B V Naidu, on Wednesday said that in the last five months alone 82 companies have come to Bangalore and the value of investment has touched around Rs 700 crore (Rs 7 billion).

There have been voices raised over infrastructure hurdles in the Bangalore city. The Southern Region of CII had also recently said that Chennai has been the default beneficiary problems face by Bangalore and suggested implementation of a couple of projects to reduce congestion and spread the development more evenly across the state.

However, the Director of Software Technology Parks in India-Bangalore, B V Naidu said that Bangalore saw the entry of 82 companies in the last five months alone and out of this 52 were foreign firms. The value of investment had touched around Rs 700 crore (Rs 110 crore from foreign companies) in the last five months.

"Infrastructure hurdles are there in every city. Whenever there is a problem/issue on infrastructure, government of Karnataka addresses it immediately. Bangalore Agenda Task Force, which comprises members from both the government and industry is looking at the issues relating to infrastructure. However, the government has allocated Rs.300 crore for the improvement of roads in Bangalore," secretary, IT, biotechnology and science and technology M K Shankaralinge Gowda said.

Gowda also said that the government was in the process of implementing the IT corridor project to reduce congestion in the southern part of Bangalore. "This project will help reduce congestion and spread the IT development more evenly across the state, he said.

He said that the Karnataka was planning to develop 10 new technology parks with a space of 15 million sq ft before March 2005.

Three large companies had relocated to Bangalore from Chennai. PCS (Patni Computer Services), which was operating from Mumbai for the last 20 years, had set up a largest development centre in Bangalore, Naidu said.

While referring to software exports, Naidu said that the state is targetting a growth of 35 per cent in software exports for this fiscal.