  We compute the order alpha_s^2 corrections to the one particle inclusive
electroproduction cross section of hadrons with non vanishing transverse
momentum. We perform the full calculation analytically, and obtain the
expression of the factorized (finite) cross section at this order. We compare
our results with H1 data on forward production of pi^0, and discuss the
phenomenological implications of the rather large higher order contributions
obtained in that case. Specifically, we analyze the cross section sensitivity
to the factorization and renormalization scales, and to the input fragmentation
functions, over the kinematical region covered by data. We conclude that the
data is well described by the O(alpha_s^2) predictions within the theoretical
uncertainties and without the inclusion of any physics content beyond the DGLAP
approach.
