kolkata the list of admirers of it bengal is on the rise global credit rating agency moodys chairman and chief executive officer john rutherford jr and the firms senior vicepresident chester murray are the latest in line to be bowled over by the quality of human talent available here for the it businessat an informal interaction with state it secretary gd gautama both officials said the sheer depth of the talent pool in the state alone was an irresistible attraction for infotech firms keen to emerge as larger players in indiahe rutherford said that one could not have asked for a better set of people in the it and highend bpo arena gautama saidcoming from him this has a special significance since moodys is one of the top rating agencies of the world and the views of its top man are taken seriously by decisionmakers internationally we couldnt have asked for a better validation of the states it potential gautama addedlast month both the influential it association of america and nasscom had raised toasts to the states commitment to the development of the it sectorgautama said moodys planned to outsource a larger volume of work to domestic rating agency icras recently opened bpo facility in kolkata to underline the confidence it had in the ability of people here moodys has a stake in icrawe expect twothirds of the work to be handled at the bpo centre the only one of its kind we have in india from moodys itself icra managing director pk choudhury said we should soon be getting more work from moodys related to their structured finance operations choudhury addedchoudhury said icra which currently employed 15 people at the bpo facility planned to raise headcount to 100 in the next two yearsthe ramping up could happen sooner if icra was able to net a big deal it was chasing officials saidwe expect the bpo facility to be a major revenue generator choudhury said there were no immediate plans to convert the bpo business into a separate company he added