Wipro to carry out expansion in existing project: Premji

Impasse continues over Rajarhat campus

With no headway into the deadlock over SEZ status stalling Wipro's proposed second unit in West Bengal, founder and chairman of IT-giant, Azim Premji on Monday said, the company will be carrying out expansion in its existing campus in the state.

“We will carry out expansion on our existing project,” Premji, who was here for an interaction session with city industrialists organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), told reporters.

Although, he did not share further details, CII representatives later issued a statement saying, “During the meeting Sri Azim Premji announced that he will be doubling his manpower capacity in Kolkata. From the current capacity of 6500 shall be adding another 6000.”

The existing project is a special economic zone (SEZ), spread over nearly 17 acres of land in Salt Lake.

However, Premji refused to comment on the proposed 50-acre Rajarhat campus, which is to be the second Wipro campus in the state. Wipro had bought 50 acres to set up during Left rule for the unit and proposed to invest Rs.700-800 crore, providing employment to 15,000 people.

But, Mamata Banerjee-led government's firm opposition to SEZs has put the project in a limbo.

In December last year, Azim Premji met West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee. Although Premji remained tight-lipped after the meeting, state Finance Minister Amit Mitra said Wipro was going ahead with the project.

Later, Wipro indicated it would not start work on the campus without an SEZ status as the company noted without SEZ help the campus would not be “financially viable”.

However, the company maintained it was not scrapping the project, noting that it was in a position to negotiate for the SEZ status. “We still have some space in the first campus, we can take our time on the second one,” the company official had said.Incidentally, another project by Infosys too has hit a roadblock after being denied SEZ status by the state government.