Engineers usher in silent IT revolution in Dharamsala

Lalit Mohan

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, March 5

A group of engineers from across the country have ushered in a silent IT revolution in Dharamsala without any government help and are training young professionals from the area and providing them jobs locally.

Krishanan N, an IT engineer from Bengaluru with over 25 year experience in the industry and Varun Rattan Singh, a local IT engineer, started a venture GAI Technologies in 2011 at Dharamsala. The company that is running from a rented house located in the narrow lanes of Dari area of Dharamsala is hard to locate. However, once you enter the building that does not have any signboard, engineers are seen working on their laptops and receiving international calls. The company that was formed just three years ago has grown with a turnover from Rs 75 lakh per annum to Rs 2.4 crore.

Krishanan, while talking to The Tribune, said he moved to Dharamsala with his family in 2010 as he like staying in the hills. “Apart from the serene environment, the basic idea to move here was that the area has a large number of educational institutes. Since IT is a knowledge-based industry, the only investment you want for starting an industry is trained manpower. I wanted to create a small IT industry by training local youth,” he said.

Varun Rattan Singh, an engineer and local who earlier worked for the IT Department of Himachal said he met Krishanan in Dharamsala and their ideas clicked.

Varun said their company GAI Technologies, now specialised in developing high-end websites using Drupal programming.

“We have clients in India and many foreign countries. Our major clients include Care India, Open Ad Magazine and Alfiasal University of Saudi Arabia,” he said. Varun said following their model of IT industry, many other software engineers have also come to Dharamsala and set up their ventures.