Tesco, the largest retail chain in the UK, has announced the creation of around 3,500 new jobs.

The employment drive will result in the transfer of about 350 infotech-related jobs to India.

Tesco is setting up a new centre in Bangalore, which will focus on infotech and development of common business support processes, to bolster its business expansion moves.

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The centre will be operational by the middle of next year. The company already has a non-food sourcing team here.

"We are setting up the high-tech service centre as a part of our evolutionary drive to create value in a highly competitive world. Although 350 roles will get transferred to India from the UK operations over the next 12 months, in the long-run this will make the business stronger and enable it to grow," David Potts, director (retail), Tesco, said.

"The new jobs announced were in addition to the 10,000 new UK jobs that we declared as a part of our annual results. We now have about 220,000 UK employees," he said.

About 1,400 new jobs will be created as a part of the retail chain's plans to convert one-stop stores to Tesco Express. The stores will open this week in several cities in the UK.

A strong trading performance has also led to the creation of about 2,000 in-store jobs. Extra positions have been created to ensure good service to customers. Another 50 jobs are likely to come up in Tesco Telecoms over the next 12 months.

Tesco Talk, the company's fixed line offer, will be launched in September in the UK. Tesco Mobile, also being launched this year, will offer pre-paid phone services.