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In 2018 Infosys, one of India’s leading IT companies was allocated 50 acres of land by Government of Karnataka (GoK) at Gokul Road, Hubballi through KIADB to establish IT & ITES business and recognised it as a Special Economic Zone (SEZ). The IT giant then built the campus across those 50 acres and to the disappointment of the people, the campus lies empty and operations are yet to start.  The Phase-1 of the SEZ, expected to employ around 1500 employees was ready for initiating operations by Jan. 2018. The campus in its full capacity is estimated to provide employment to about 5000 youth in the IT/ITES sector. 

Even after 4.5 years, operations have not started in this campus, which is probably the only one of its kind SEZ in the north Karnataka region. It is gathered from certain correspondences during 2021, the company had expressed some concerns related to public infrastructure related to travel, as a cause for the delay in commencing operations in its Hubballi campus. 

While the company was expected to consider starting work from the Hubballi SEZ post the Covid‑19 pandemic, the people of north Karnataka were taken by surprise by an announcement by the company on 20-June to set-up new facilities/recruit from 6 cities outside Karnataka (Indore, Coimbatore, Vizag, Noida, and Kolkata). Through this the company may go ahead with recruitment of thousands of people in other cities, while the Hubballi campus remains vacant! 

The people of North Karnataka have been hoping for new IT/BT companies coming to the region under the GoK’s Beyond Bengaluru policy. However, this comes as a big shock to the people and the youth in particular. With the proposed action of Infosys to go to 6 cities outside the state, it seems that the IT/BT industry is taking the Beyond Karnataka route in place of Beyond Bengaluru as intended by the GoK. Therefore, starting operations in Infosys Hubli is key to demonstrate the firm will of the Government to implement the Beyond Bengaluru policy successfully. 

Therefore, we on behalf of the people and particularly the lakhs of youth of Hubballi-Dharwad and the entire North Karnataka region, hereby request you to talk to the leadership of Infosys Limited and sort out any issues or hindrances coming in the way of starting operations in Hubli campus in full-fledged manner immediately. Hubballi-Dharwad is ready with a functioning airport with good connectivity, several top notch educational institutions such as IIT, IIIT, KIMS, SDM and KLE Tech. University, huge talented human resource pool and several successful IT companies including HCL Technologies and N S InfoTech.