IT giant Wipro Infotech is eyeing Government contracts worth about Rs 5,200 crore for the current fiscal, and for the first two quarters it has already won projects worth Rs 750 crore.

Wipro Infotech is the largest player in the Government projects space and has won some marquee projects such as an order from the UIDAI for setting up computing and storage platform for 100 million Adhaar numbers and hosting data centres; a turnkey project from Punjab Excise for automating the taxation system and a contract from the Jammu and Kashmir Government for automating the State power distribution department under the Restructured Accelerated Power Development Reforms Programme.

“We are participating in almost all the Mission Mode projects under the national e-governance plan. We are also bidding for a number of Central, State and Defence deals,” Mr Anand Sankaran, Senior Vice-President and Business Head, India, West Asia and Africa business, Wipro, told Business Line .

Wipro Infotech services business is growing 22 per cent year on year; and on a sequential basis it grew 13 per cent in second quarter of this fiscal.

Mr Sankaran also pointed out that between three and five years, Wipro Infotech's operating margin for India business will be similar to the business from other economies. “This should surely give us more confidence and comfort, which will help us to become more aggressive in the market,” Mr Sankaran said.

The India-West Asia market, over the last six months, has been performing quite well in terms of growth, Mr Sankaran said. However, while opportunities look good, conversions are taking time. “People are taking time to take big decisions, across the markets.

“There is a lot of potential, but the issue is to get deals faster. Bid deals always take time to fructify,” he said.

The clients have to decide if they want to outsource, and whom to outsource to; and this takes 12-18 months, Mr Sankaran pointed out.

He admitted that though the decision making for Government contracts was usually slow, the process had not slowed down considerably because of recession.

On recruitment, he said Wipro Infotech will continue to hire and it expects to hire between 10 per cent and 15 per cent more this fiscal.

Wipro Infotech has about 15,000 employees on its rolls for its India business.

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