Iam writing this entry in my blog with a little hope in my heart that
justice still prevails in this country of ours and evils like politics and
corruption have not tarred the Indian IT sector still. This is all about the
grievances of an IT start-up from Bhilai, a growing city in Chattisgarh, which
is started by a young entrepreneur from Bhilai itself.
IT industry is Chattisgarh is yet to grow and people of this
state are really making efforts to grow IT industry in this state, but until
people like Mr Muruganathan, Joint Director. STPI is there in STPI its really
difficult for upcoming start-ups and entrepreneurs to even think of doing
something for this state.
Let me narrate the entire STPI drama which is happening from
March 2007 in STPI, Bhilai.
Before that I would like to give a brief about Globussoft,
our enterprise.
Globussoft is a mid size startup from bhilai with clients
across the Globe, mainly from US, UK , Australia and Middle East. We mainly develop outsourced
projects from offshore clients based on there requirements.
Globussoft is an ISO 9001:2000 certified company and soon we
are going for ISO 270001 for Infrastructure Services.
About the management, it’s headed by a young, dynamic, fresh,
23 year old B.E from Bhilai Institute of Technology, Durg.
We have about 54 clients so far, and we complete about 6-8
medium sized projects (offshore) every month.
This was a brief description about Globussoft.
We had to really struggle hard to get our company registered
with STPI to get the export benefits. The reason for this is mentioned below.
I, Sumit Ghosh, used to work as an employee of a company
which was an STPI registered unit. Six months after leaving that company, when
I founded Globussoft and decided to register it with STPI, then this company’s
director who had a good influence on Mr Muruganathan tried all ways to disallow
us to get inside STPI.
Mr Muruganathan tried all ways to not allow us to get
registration with STPI by asking us to do what all things which no where is
written in the rule books of STPI registration. Can you imagine I was asked to
make a presentation on our companies’ products to STPI staff, to assure them
that we really have done some projects?
The funniest thing is that the company which I used to work
for, when it was given registration they were allowed to enter STPI in just 10
days. They didn’t had anything legal nor they had registered with STPI and they
are still operating with a staff of 3 with 1000 sq. feets of land area. What a
waste of STPI resources! And Mr Muruganathan is very happy with this!
The next important thing which is a must mention here.
To enter STPI we were given a condition. We had to build a
wall , that too by digging the base of STPI building, invest some 15,000 INR in
that wall , because the company alongside us thought that there data is
insecure if we operate by their side.
So its Globussoft’s duty to protect the other company’s data
, and not STPI’s!!!!
So Globussoft must build a wall inside the STPI premises
only because we wanted to recognize ourselves as a STPI registered unit. What a
stupid decision by STPI!
But we had to follow it, since we had no choice.
The Great Wall drama- The Real drama begins now
After building the wall in 15 days, and spending some 15,000
INR on it, one fine day the STPI officials come and tell us that the wall is
not ok and it must be broken and rebuilt. They say that the other company on
the other side of the wall thinks that the wall is two thin and may fall down
when they TOUCH it. Imagine someone as intelligent as STPI Joint Dr. Saying
this that a 9mm wall will fall down!
Even a simple uneducated person will know that a wall as
thick as 115mm wont fall down on its own , unless it has some load. In our case
it was just a partition wall with 3 beams with zero load.
Finally the PWD people came to our rescue and they had to
certify to the joint director that the wall built by us won’t fall down over
the head of other company.
So finally Globussoft was able to secure the other company’s
data which was actually a responsibility of STPI.
Finally after all this fuss we were able to anyhow start our
operations in STPI premises.
But this was just the beginning. These people had decided
that they won’t allow any entrepreneurs to flourish in this place and tried all
means on us.
The STPI security misbehaved with our management and our
staff. When we complained, instead of the security we were warned that we
should behave properly with the security. The only reason being, the security
company’s owner is relative of Mr Choubey, who is a staff at STPI. Such
relative favouring practices must be strictly disallowed in any enterprise.
The staff is really very uncooperative with us regarding any
infrastructural matter. Even to get a tube light replaced it takes hell out of
us.
And now the situation has grown out of control, Yesterday Mr
Muruganathan called our COO, Mr S. Ghosh and warned him that we are not allowed
to train college students inside STPI premises. When Mr Ghosh asked to give
this in writing he just shouted on him like anything and misbehaved with him
badly. We won’t really tolerate any such behaviour towards the senior
management at all under any circumstances whatsoever.
The actual problem is that other companies need more space
in STPI , since STPI is really growing now and more and more invertors are
coming to Bhilai. All this had been possible only by our joint efforts.
Now another company in STPI complained about Mr Muruganathan
to state’s chief minister that he is not increasing the space at STPI and they
are not able to fill up their space requirements.
Now Mr Muruganathan does not want to increase the land area
of STPI, instead he wants to throw the small companies like our start-up from
STPI.
How much fair is this?
Or is this really fair at all?