Wipro plans to build biggest campus near Bangalore

At a time when shaky global economic cues have pushed most companies to po  st  pone real estate investments, India's third-largest software exporter Wipro is finalising plans to build its largest campus that can house at least 30,000 employees in Bangalore.

The new campus, whose first phase is expected to have a built up space of 2.5 million square feet, will come up on a 50-acre plot that is 4 km away from its existing 1.9 million sq ft campus in Sarjapur, on the outskirts of Bangalore.

This will be in addition to Wipro's existing campuses across the country and is not aimed at consolidating operations. Currently, the software major's headcount stands at about 138,000 employees. "We are currently in the process of finalising the master plan for the new campus," said Hariprasad He  gde, vice-president and global head of operations at Wipro. He did not provide details on the developer of the project or how much it would cost.

The Sarjapur facility -the largest for the company so far - accommodates nearly 31,000 employees.

The proposal to develop an additional campus was pending for sometime due to issues with land approvals. However, these have now been sorted out and the company has received the go-ahead for the project. Wipro is currently working with architects on the master plan.

Software biggies have been investing in new development centres to cater to future growth even though the current industry situation is not encouraging. In October, India's largest software exporter Tata Consultancy Services also announced plans to build a 1.5 million sq ft facility in Indore.

For Wipro, which added 13,000 employees last fiscal, the hiring pace has slowed down this year as the employee churn has stabilised. In November, software body Nasscom said the industry's growth target for the year to March 2013 would be at the lower end of the 11-14% range it forecast earlier.

Last year, the sector grew a little over 16% to touch $70 billion (about Rs 3.85 lakh crore) in exports. Faced with tough macro-economic situations in the US and Europe, large corporations there have been delaying technology spending.

Revenue from the US and Europe together make up over 80% of the revenue for Indian IT services companies. On Tuesday, shares of Wipro closed at Rs 388.10 on the Bombay Stock Exchange, down 1.6% from Monday's close.