Infosys Technologies plans to further consolidate its presence in Orissa, announced T V Mohandas Pai, chief financial officer and director (finance and administration), here on Thursday.

He said the Infosys Development Center at Bhubaneswar has been ramping up operation steadily since its inception in 1997 and has grown from an employee base of 56 to over 1,300.

This is likely to go up soon as a part of the 10,000 new software professionals, to be recruited nationwide during the current fiscal, is likely to be stationed in Bhubaneswar.

Pai said the seat capacity of the centre, located over 46 acres in Infocity, has recently been upgraded to 2,000 professionals following the completion of third building in the complex.

The total investment in the Bhubaneswar centre has grown from Rs 53 crore (Rs 530 million) in 2001 to Rs 83 crore (Rs 830 million) in 2004. The company has plans to invest Rs 27 crore (Rs 270 million) more at Bhubaneswar centre during the current fiscal.

Software exports from Orissa grew from Rs 260 crore (Rs 2.6 billion) in 2003 to Rs 319 crore (Rs 3.19 billion) in 2004 and Infosys accounted for nearly 80 per cent of this business. The Bhubaneswar centre is anchoring the company's relationships with multi-million dollar clients from Canada, Europe and North America.

Pai said, "There was a time when IT was only concentrated in Bangalore. Infosys has changed this and taken IT to the smaller cities in the rest of the country".