Infosys is hesitant about taking up government-related IT projects in India.

Talking to reporters at its April-June ending quarterly results, UB Pravin Rao, Chief Operating Officer, said that corruption, delay in payments, lack of proper project definition, and constant chopping and changing mid-way in a project, were all making the company leery of participating in some of the Government’s technology projects.

‘No profit’ On July 21, co-founder NR Narayana Murthy had told CNBC-TV18 that Infosys and other tech companies have not made any profit on government projects and unless the Centre comes up with reasonably attractive and competitive set of clauses, large companies will not be keen on working with it.

According to data, Infosys gets around 85 per cent of its revenues from private sector companies like ICICI Bank, and counts some government projects like Income Tax filing and modernisation of India Post, as its marquee ones.

India business Overall, it gets only 2.2 per cent revenues from its India business. CEO Vishal Sikka said that the India strategy is a long drawn out one, but the company was positive about the ‘Digital India’ initiatives by the Centre.

“Digital is the way of the future for India and will help India leapfrog other countries,” he said. Infosys is not alone to voice concerns around government projects. A few quarters back, Wipro CEO TK Kurien too, had voiced similar concerns, such as delay in payments in government-related tech projects.

Also, apart from government projects, Infosys over the years has had several run-ins with State governments in Karnataka and Kerala over infrastructure issues.

Recently, the software major withdrew its plans of building a second software development centre in Technopark, Kerala, citing lack of infrastructure, water and power.

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