E-commerce major Amazon will recruit 13,500 more in Hyderabad in the next three years.

Of this, it will hire 5,000 in the next two months taking the number of employees in Hyderabad to 9,000, according to Andhra Pradesh Information Technology Minister Ponnala Lakshmaiah.

An Amazon team met the Minister and IT Department officials on Wednesday to brief about their proposed expansion plan at Nanakramguda Special Economic Zone.

“They intend to build 1.6 million square feet of office space to cater to their technical (software development) and non-technical (support, back office operations). The new campus would be first dedicated and owned facility of Amazon outside the US,” the Minister said.

Addressing reporters here on Thursday, he said the e-commerce company was working with their architectural consultants for the design of their facility. “It has completed field survey and contour mapping on the 10 acres land allotted to them by the State Government,” he said.

Amazon, which employs over 56,000 globally, entered Hyderabad in 2005 with 100 people. It grew to 4,000 in Hyderabad at its leased premises. Though the company was allotted 10.57 acres at Nanakramguda village near here, it could not start its construction activity as the allocation fell into legal dispute. “It was actively pursuing to shift their expansion to Pune and Mumbai. The issue, however, has been resolved and they agreed to stick to Hyderabad,” the Minister said.

Google expansion

Separately, a Google team too met the IT Minister to discuss their expansion plans. The search engine company, which has over 7,500 employees in Hyderabad, would be given 10 acres at Raydurg village. “We have in-principle agreed to give 10 acres to them,” the Minister said.

Google had paid full cost of land (for the 20 acres it was allotted) at Kokapet Special Economic Zone in 2007. But it could not take the possession as the land parcel was part of the 450 acres that was facing a public interest litigation, pending in the Supreme Court.

“We met their global leadership at Santa Clara (the US) and convinced them to reconsider their expansion plan. We have agreed to give 10 acres to them,” Ponnala Lakshmaiah said.

> kurmanath.kanchi@thehindu.co.in

Related Topics