'Infrastructure development vital for IT BPO growth'

“Infrastructure development is vital for the growth of the IT BPO industry,” said the chairman of the Sri Lanka Association of Software Service Companies (SLASSCOM) Sujeewa Devaraj. He was speaking at the SLASSCOM CXO Lunch Briefing in Colombo last week. In the cost structure of the IT BPO industry, HR cost is the highest and infrastructure comes second. Several global reports on real estate costs have recognised Sri Lanka as one of the most cost-effective destinations in the region.

However, some of them have pointed out that although costs are low, availability is also low.

Therefore, the vital aspects of real estate and infrastructure are low price, availability and quality. Sri Lanka's infrastructure quality has been ranked high in international ranking indices.At a media briefing, NMEC consultant, Bandula Samarasekara said that there is serious discrimination in the tariff increase and according to the new structure while household consumers pay over 100 percent more, large scale consumers will pay lower rates.

While there is a 20 percent rate increase for the industrial sector, the rate increase for commercial establishments is only 10 percent.

Small and medium scale industries will be particularly affected as a result of this electricity hike.

There is discrimination even within the industrial sector rates and the SMEs that account for only nine percent of the industrial sector electricity consumption will have to pay 20 percent higher rates while the rate increase for the large scale industries that account for 91 percent of electricity consumption, is only nine percent. There is discrimination in the rate increase for commercial establishments.For SMEs there is a nine percent increase while there is only five percent hike for large scale electricity wasters, he said.

NMEC represents household electricity consumers and small and medium industries.

There are 4,200,000 household electricity consumers and 75 percent of them use less than 90 units per month. Under the new tariff structure the highest rate increase has been imposed on them, Samarasekara said.