Software major Tata Consultancy Services has decided to invest Rs 200 crore (Rs 2 billion) in a new development centre in Chennai.

TCS plans to ramp up its Chennai operations from the 5,000 people it employs at present to 7,500 in the next 36 months and to 10,000 people in the next 48 months.

TCS's Chennai unit accounts for 22 per cent of its all-India operations, both in terms of number of people employed and share in total revenue.

The software company will be expanding its operations at an infotech park in Siruseri (a Chennai suburb), promoted by the State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu.

The new location is spread over 70 acres and is expected to become operational in the next two years and is expected to house over 3,000 personnel in the next three years.

Announcing the expansion plan, S Mahalingam, chief financial officer, TCS, said, "We are looking at consolidating our operations within three large locations in Chennai. Solinganallur and Siruseri would be two of them and we are yet to decide on the third."

TCS currently operates out of seven locations in Chennai. TCS's Solinganallur centre is spread over 160,000 sq ft, Tidel Park centre over 90,000 sq ft and Ambattur centre over 80,000 sq ft.

Mahalingam added, "We would continue to focus on healthcare, insurance, retail and financial services and in terms of technology it would be e-business, architecture consulting and of course application development."

TCS's operations in Noida (near Delhi) is spread over 250,000 sq ft and its Hyderabad operations is spread over 350,000 sq ft. Both these centres are emerging as major development centres.

While its Noida centre is ready to go on stream, the up-coming centre at Hyderabad should be operational by September or October this year.