Wipro fails again to meet deadline on city unit, Government peeved

IT major Wipro continues to play hide and seek with the Odisha government over operationalizing its Bhubaneswar Development Centre as it has once again gone back on its commitments in this regard.

The Odisha, annoyed with Wipro's lackadaisical attitude to fully operate and expand its software unit at Infocity, has reprimanded the company officials several times in the past, but to no avail.

In the latest missive to chief executive officer of Wipro, TK Kurien, the state IT minister, Pranab Prakash Das has referred to his meeting with senior vice-president and global head (operation), Wipro, Hariprasad Hegde and said, "It is unfortunate on part of Wipro that none of the commitments made by Hegde during his visit to Odisha on January 21, 2015 has been fulfilled till date even as all the timelines of his commitment are over now. Due to such inaction by Wipro, the state government is facing serious embracement from different corners for providing 26 acres of land to the company at a prime location of the Bhubaneswar city".

In the January third week meeting with Das, Hegde had promised that the existing building of the company will be ready to accommodate 1800 employees by January, 2015. He said, following this the head count at the Bhubaneswar Centre will be increased from 230 to 1800 in 18 months' time. Besides, Hegde assured that Wipro will undertake its next phase of expansion to house 4000 more technical associates by constructing two more towers (Ground+8). The IT behemoth was supposed to submit the building plan for the two new towers in February 2015 for approval by the competent authority of the state government and implement the expansion plan immediately after that.

The foundation stone for the second phase was supposed to be laid on April 1, 2015.

Das, in his letter, has sought an explanation from the IT behemoth for such inaction and non-fulfilment of the commitments.

The Odisha government in 2005 had allotted 26 acres of land to the IT major, which had started the construction work on the facility in 2007. The original plan was to construct five towers (G+10), which would house 11000 technical associates.

It may be noted that Chief Minister, Naveen Patnaik in August 2013 had written to Wipro chairman Azim Premji, complaining about the tardy progress of its Bhubaneswar Development Centre.