Merging ops; no lay-off at Lucknow centre: TCS

Company says employees would be given option to relocate once the Noida facility gets ready

Against the backdrop of uncertainty over continuation of its Lucknow development centre, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has told the Uttar Pradesh government that it is not retrenching any staffers but is consolidating the operations to a bigger centre in Noida.
 
A TCS team led by Rajesh Gopinathan, managing director, called on Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath here on Friday evening. This was after the Lucknow employees had appealed to the CM to intervene and get the company to keep the local unit alive.
 
The delegation gave a presentation to the CM and top officials and explained that, in line with a business plan, the company was consolidating its operations and discontinuing with smaller units for economy of scale. The government’s additional chief secretary for planning and information technology and electronics, Sanjiv Saran, was present in the meeting.

 

Gopinath said the company was expanding its existing Noida operations, currently supporting 15,000 people, to accommodate between 25,000 and 40,000 staffers in the near future.
 
“The TCS officials said until the Noida capacity was enhanced, the Lucknow centre would continue to operate. Once the Noida integrated facility gets ready in another one to two years, the staff would be given the option to relocate,” said Saran.
 
TCS has been functioning in the state capital for 33 years. It was among the first IT majors to set foot in UP.
 
Last month, it had denied suggestions of prospective job losses in view of the company closing down its Lucknow centre, underlining it was only consolidating into larger centres, including in Chennai. The company said it would continue to hire in UP.

 
The TCS delegation also comprised its operations head, N Ganapathy Subramaniam, vice-president Alok Kumar and senior general manager S K Nair. They parried queries from journalists who’d gathered at the secretariat to report on the matter.
 
Currently, TCS operates out of a rented premises here in the upmarket Gomti Nagar area, where tenancy rates are high. The building owners have assured the state government that they are willing to renegotiate rentals, as they do not want to be blamed for the proposed shifting from Lucknow, a senior government official told Business Standard.
 
The state government has also offered TCS around 40 acres near the city airport to set up a development centre. The company is non-committal.

 
The Lucknow unit employs nearly 1,700 engineers and 300 support staff. The employees had taken out a candle march and also used social media to garner support. Most of the staffers say they have family problems in relocating. And, fear job loss, given the tough times the domestic IT sector has been facing over the changing nature of the sector, with the spread of automation, artificial intelligence, cloud, etc.