With projects from its clients drying up in the aftermath of the economic downturn, 40-50 employees of Wipro Technologies’ Bhubaneswar centre, have been redeployed to the company’s other locations across the country, thereby bringing down the centre’s headcount to around 100.
The software major’s dwindling employee strength was a cause of concern as it was planning to shift to its full-fledged campus in the Infocity area of the city spread over 26 acres. Wipro was presently operating out of a rented facility in the city.
Though the first tower of Wipro’s full-fledged campus with a capacity to accommodate 600 people was ready for operations, the company’s employees are yet to shift from the rented facility. Shifting to its own campus would mean a rise in operational expenditure which Wipro was avoiding at the moment as new projects were hard to come by.
"The process of shifting to our own campus has already been delayed by six months. Shifting to the new campus would mean escalation in operational expenses which we are avoiding at present as it is difficult to get new projects", a senior company executive told Business Standard.
"We would consider shifting to our new campus when we have a significant business proposition. We are battling tough times at present as 40-50 of the employees of Wipro’s Bhubaneswar centre had to be redeployed to other centres of the company in the absence of adequate projects", he added.
As per the company’s plans, Wipro’s full-fledged campus in the city was to consist of five towers and the company had a long-term manpower aim to have a pool of 8,000 employees for the centre. The entire campus was scheduled to be fully operational by 2012-13.
While the first tower was ready for operations, construction work on the second tower was underway and it was set to be commissioned by December this year. The second tower of Wipro would have a capacity to accommodate around 1,000 employees.
