India diary: Day six - Space-age tech campuses

silicon.com reporter Andy McCue was on assignment in India from 14 to 23 April investigating offshoring efforts in Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and New Delhi. This is his diary. Articles and commentary on IT offshoring and BPO in India and elsewhere will be appearing on silicon.com over the coming weeks. You can find them all here.

19/4/04: During breakfast at the hotel in Bangalore I overhear snippets of conversations from groups of American and European business people out here on a prospective visit or to visit their existing operations.

After eating, a car takes me out of the choked centre of Bangalore, along a highway and out to the heart of India's Silicon Valley - an area called Electronics City, which is about 20 km away. We pass many corporate Wipro and Infosys buses along the way, taking staff to the huge out-of-town campuses. We also pass a few western IT outposts here, including a big Novell building.

Arriving at Electronics City, the first thing that hits you is its scale and security. Huge modern glass and steel campuses reflect the strong morning sun, enclosed by walled compounds and heavily guarded security gates. I pass an HP complex on the way to visit one of India's largest IT services companies, Wipro. To give an indication of the scale of the Wipro campus, where my first meeting is, there are eight gated entrances, and you need a car to get between them all. After strict bag checks and my laptop serial number being noted I'm given an escorted tour of the place.

For confidentiality reasons I'm not allowed to reveal company names. What I can say is I'm taken past a succession of departments bearing the logos of several well known UK financial services and utility companies that are using Wipro for some of their IT services requirements. Several welcome signs bearing the names of people visiting that day (including mine) adorn boards around the campus and also give away the names of other UK companies who would prefer that their presence here weren't known.

A tour of the infrastructure management 'command centre' reveals another well-known UK name, although that service is actually subcontracted to Wipro from a more well known traditional IT services firm. The centre has tight security with biometric fingerprint scanners on the door to control entry. There is also an ominously titled meeting room called 'the war room', although I'm told it is just an area project teams use to brainstorm and work out problems.

In Wipro's learning centre I'm given a quick overview of the induction and ongoing training for Wipro recruits. Aside from all the technology-specific training, one of the most interesting is the 'language neutralisation' module. The talk now is not of giving Indians Texan or Yorkshire accents but of teaching them just to communicate clearly. A culture and travel portal for the different regions Wipro serves is also used, along with pronunciation training, advice on food, customs and business behaviour.

A high-tech offshoring campus near Bangalore.

On the way out there is a view of a vast tract of land covered in half-developed concrete and steel buildings - and it's all Wipro's. The company has around 29,000 staff right now but that's expected to grow at a phenomenal rate over the next few years.

Next up is a drive to the nearby Infosys campus. With the temperature nudging 40 degrees centigrade at midday, staff use the umbrellas racked up outside the HQ to shield themselves from the fierce sun as they walk around. After an audience with Infosys CEO Nandan Nilekani, I see the multimedia visitor centre opened by Tony Blair and then get a golf buggy tour of the huge campus - employees use the bikes that are left around the place to get between buildings - where we pass the pitch and putt golf course, a self-contained fitness centre, open-air amphitheatre for social events, a food court and a basketball court.

Employees are encouraged to bring their families at the weekend to use the leisure facilities. Infosys says it recognises the work can be stressful and the hours long so the emphasis is on making it a fun environment to work in. In terms of facilities it would certainly rival if not better most of the US tech campuses. At Infosys' BPO subsidiary Progeon, which is on the same campus, there are happy birthday signs adorning reception as it celebrates its second anniversary - there's a big party planned for the evening. The average age of the workers is about 21 and there's definitely a touch of the dot-com feeling about the place.

Construction work is going on everywhere around Electronics City, fuelled by the booming BPO sector, but already land prices in Bangalore are forcing some firms to think about other regions of India. A local real estate broker claims IT firms are paying some 60,000 to 80,000 rupees (£730 to £973) per metre squared.

Even though I've become used to the Indian traffic I sit terrified in the back of a taxi to the airport as my driver weaves in between huge trucks and buses at breakneck speed. I'm struck by the 'peoplecarrier' motorbikes, the main form of transport for many families. It isn't uncommon to see the father riding the bike, with the mother perched precariously at the back (often side-saddle), the smallest child sitting on the petrol tank and another kid sandwiched between the parents. The driver tells me there are a lot of motorbike accidents caused by saris getting caught in the back wheel and chain of motorbikes.

It's back to the airport to catch the 50 minute flight to India's up and coming high-tech city, Hyderabad.