Bangalore: German IT major Philips Software today (Oct 8, 2004) said it is backing out of Bangalore IT.Com, Karnataka's flagship IT event, protesting the Government's "failure" in improving the infrastructure in India's silicon valley.

"We are backing out of this year's event. The Government is just not doing anything to improve the infrastructure in Bangalore," Philips Software CEO Bob Hoekstra said, adding the firm had earlier planned to participate in this year's event, after being out of it for three years.

He said an informal forum of CEOs of 15 R&D and high technology firms, both multinational and local IT firms, have decided to boycott this year's event, being held from November one to five, amidst a huge interest by global IT firms to migrate high end and BPO work to India.

"The IT.Com is aimed at attracting new IT investment into the State. What is the use of getting new investments, if they fail to serve the companies which have already doing business here," Hoekstra, who takes keen interest in happenings in the city, said.

Bangalore's residents have staged protests crying for good and decongested roads including from students and faculty from the Indian Institute of Management (IIMB) located on Bannerghatta road, home for multinationals like Accenture, HSBC and Oracle blocked traffic early this week against what they called "apathy" by civic agencies to complete the road filled with craters.

Karnataka IT Secretary K N Shankaralinge Gowda said the State was taking up infrastructure work on a "war footing" in the city and would convince the firms to participate in the event.

Karnataka Chief Minister Dharam Singh yesterday (Oct 7, 2004) said the infrastructure bottlenecks in the city were being addressed and about 15 flyovers would be completed in six to nine months.

He said a township built in over 8,600 acres of land near the electronics city was also being planned to decongest the city.

Over 250 companies participated in the last edition of Bangalore IT.Com and the Government expects more participation this year with outsourcing of IT work, BPO and technology work increasing from Western firms.