Bangalore: India's smaller cities and towns will register a faster growth in software and BPO exports as IT and BPO firms, backed by booming offshoring orders from customers expand into secondary cities to arrest costs and talent attrition, a top IT Department official said today (Nov 2, 2004).

"The secondary cities will register a faster growth of five times in the next five years," Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) Director General S N Zindal said addressing the inaugural of the "Technology Outsourcing" conference at the Bangalore IT.COM in Bangalore.

As IT and BPO companies expand into cities like Madurai, Mangalore, Bhopal, Jaipur, Mysore and Coimbatore among others, STPI, anticipating the change, has increased its earth stations to about 29 locations across the country, up from 15 centres in 2000, which were predominantly in big cities.

"We are planning to add more (STPI units in smaller towns) in the coming days," he said.

STPI, a State-owned body to promote software exports by providing communication links and clearances, has helped India achieve phenomenally in software and BPO sector.

Zindal said telecom infrastructure in smaller cities were available, which included fibre optic and satellite links, besides cost of operations being lower than in metros and a far lower attrition of talent than in big cities.

"We are urging the big companies to look beyond the metro and big cities for their second or third software or BPO centre," he said, while adding that Metros will continue to be dominant places for software exports.