Tardy progress of Wipro's city project irks Odisha govt

Though the hub was officially opened in Sept 2012, only one tower out of the five proposed in the complex has been completed

The Odisha government has expressed concern over slow progress of Wipro’s Bhubaneswar Development Centre despite several appeals to the company to expedite the work on this campus.

Though Bhubaneswar Development Centre of the IT major in the Infocity hub was officially opened on September 24, 2012, its operation has been stunted with partial completion of only one tower out of the five towers proposed in the complex.

In recent letter to the company’s chairman, Azim Premji, the state IT secretary had sought an appointment with the latter to discuss the reasons of delay for development of the project. A high level delegation led by IT minister, Pranab Prakash Das along with the IT secretary, P K Jena will be visiting Bangalore to attend the world’s leading IT & ICT event, CeBIT there on November 12 and 13.

However, Wipro management has turned down the request of the state government citing that Premji will be out of station.

The state government, in the letter, has stated that Wipro's Development Centre work has been slow over the years.

Last year, Chief Minister, Naveen Patnaik had sought the intervention of Premji to start full-fledged operation at the Development Centre.

In 2005, the state government had allotted to Wipro 26 acres of land where it had started construction work in 2007. “The pace of the progress has been very slow over the last eight years”, Patnaik had written to Premji.

“Till date only administrative block has been completed. The original plan was to build five towers (G+10) which would house 11,000 technical associates. But only one tower upto sixth floor (G+6) has been constructed and at present, no construction is going on”, Patnaik had stated in the letter. Wipro had signed MoU with the state government in 2004 for setting up a software development and BPO service centre in Bhubaneswar.

After being rapped by the state government for slow progress of work, IT major had expressed its commitment to develop the centre. “While we did face initial setback, we are committed to developing and investing in Bhubaneswar Development Centre in the Infocity SEZ,” TK Kurien, chief executive officer, IT Business and Executive Director, Wipro had said.