India's TCS to Build World's Largest Corporate Learning Centre

Indian IT giant Tata Consultancy Services is building the world's largest corporate learning centre that can train 50,000 technology professionals per year.

TCS, India's largest IT company, is planning to build the TCS Learning Campus in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of the southern Indian state of Kerala.

The campus located on a 97-acre property and built over an area of 6.1 million square feet will have a total capacity to train 15,000 professionals at the same time.

India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh laid the foundation stone of the project.

"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," N Chandrasekaran, CEO of TCS, said in a statement.

The proposed training centre will have collaboration rooms and libraries on the high plateau at the middle of the site with residential and support buildings around it.

It also incorporates 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, according to the company.

The project would provide direct employment to 2,000 people during the construction phase.

Lack of Trained IT Professionals

TCS, a member of India's iconic conglomerate Tata Group, is the largest private sector employer in the country. It employs more than 285,000 employees worldwide, the majority of whom are based in India.

In fiscal year 2013/14, the company plans to hire 50,000 professionals as the fast changing global IT industry is expected to face a lack in the number well-qualified professionals. TCS' rival Infosys is planning to hire up to 16,000 people in the same period.

India will have requirements for at least 100,000 cloud computing professionals by 2015, while the global IT sector will have a shortage of some 200,000 data analysts by 2019, according to a study by EMC and Zinnov.

TCS, which has been recognized by Forbes as one of the world's most innovative companies, noted that it spends over 15 million hours on learning and development programs for its employees every year. Over the last five years, the company has trained over 143,000 IT professionals in India and abroad.