Clock to come up in 20 months.
By Dileep Thekkethil
Infosys, one of India’s largest outsourcing firms, is building the world’s tallest free-standing clock tower on its 345-acre Global Education Centre in Mysore, Karnataka.
The Infosys campus where the monumental tower will be built is considered as the world’s largest corporate university. The Global Education Centre was a dream project of the founder and the former chairman of Infosys NR Narayana Murthy.
According to media reports, the proposed tower will be taller than Big Ben (96 m) in London with 135 metres height. The other colossal structures that will be pushed back in the list once the work of Infosys’s clock tower gets completed include Hoover Tower (87 m) in California and McGraw Tower (53 m) in Cornell.
The gargantuan structure is getting ready in the historic city of Mysore, which is close to India’s tech capital Bengaluru, where Infosys has its headquarters.
The estimated cost of the structure is $8.83 million. The architects have prepared the model of the structure, which is an amalgamation of both Gothic and classical styles.
Infosys also revealed that the timepiece installed will be a digital one, ideal for a company that invests more on digital technology.
The clock building will have 19 floors with a board room. The base of the clock tower that will be erected in Mysore will be 22×22 metres.
Murthy while speaking to media said that the completion of his dream project, the Global Education Centre in Mysore, will be incomplete without a clock tower.
He added: “A clock tower brings a sense of academic breathing to the campus, and I felt we too will need one. And Vishal (Sikka) felt it is a good idea.”
The executive VP of Infosys, Ramadas Kamath said that the IT firm has received all permissions from the government agencies to kick start the project. The clock tower is expected to start ticking within 20 months said Kamath.
The contract to build the colossal clock tower has been given to Kerala-born Dubai-based engineer Faizal E Kottikollon’s Bengaluru-based venture KEF Infra, which is a two-year-old start-up construction company. The company expects to pre-cast the structure at a facility in Krishnagiri, Tamil Nadu, and later the entire structure will then be assembled together in Mysore.
Hafeez Contractor, the Mumbai-based architect who also designed Infosys’ Mysore campus will design the tower and a New York-based firm called LERA has been asked to provide structural consultancy services for the tower.
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