TCS plans its biggest unit in Chennai

India's top IT company Tata Consultancy Services Ltd plans to make Chennai its biggest centre over a period of time, replacing Mumbai where it is headquartered now, a top company official said.

"Currently, we have about 8500 employees in our Chennai operations. We plan to make this centre our biggest," said Phiroz Vandrevala, Executive Vice-President during a press conference here as part of the roadshows for TCS' initial public offering.

He said TCS has already taken about 75-80 acres of land at the Siruseri industrial park near Chennai.

At the moment, the company's Mumbai operation is the biggest, employing about 9000 people. However, after the new facility comes up, Chennai will relegate the Mumbai operations to the second position.

Commenting on the IPO, where the onsite employees cannot participate, Vandrevala said the company is planning a lucrative stock option scheme for its employees after the IPO.

"After the listing of equity shares in this offer, we intend to adopt an employee share purchase scheme for select employees and directors of the company," he said.

Vandrevala said the legal hurdles came in the way of allowing onsite employees to participate in the IPO.

Over 10,000 onsite employees cannot participate in the IPO.

"Only permanent employees, based and physically present in India on the date of submission of the bid-cum-application form, would be eligible to apply in this offer under the employee reservation portion," the TCS red herring prospectus said.

"We have operations in 32 countries and getting prior sanction would mean getting separate permission from all these countries, which would be extremely difficult and a time-consuming process," said Atul Takle, Vice-President (corporate communications) of TCS.

The price band of the IPO is Rs 775-900 per equity share of Re 1 each.

The bid opens on July 29 and closes on August 5.