Azim Premji at Writers’ on Thursday. Picture by Kishor Roy Chowdhury

The downturn has saved the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government from another loss of face with Wipro willing to wait for the delivery of the 90-acre plot in Jagadishpur, near Vedic Village.

“There is enough land for our needs on our Salt Lake premises as of now. There is no emergency on that (new plot) front,” Wipro CEO Azim Premji said after emerging from a 50-minute meeting with the chief minister at Writers’ Buildings on Thursday.

“We are committed to Bengal, we are committed to growth and we are committed to your government,” he said.

Premji did not say ‘read my lips’ but decoded, his statement made from under the trademark silver moustache, would mean Wirpo is going slow on its proposed second campus in Calcutta.

Sources in Wipro stressed that optimum utilisation of the existing campus, where a new building came up last month, was the need of the hour and not the opening of a new one.

“These are difficult times and the focus is on utilising the existing facilities. All expansion plans are being reviewed,” the source said.

Efforts are on to maximise the utilisation of the company’s 19-acre campus in Sector V, which houses a BPO unit and a software development section. Plans are apparently on to dismantle the guest house on the campus and shift people involved in non-core activities to a building outside.

For over four years, the state government has been trying in vain to facilitate the tech major’s expansion plans in Calcutta. Wipro’s new campus, initially planned in Rajarhat New Town, hit a roadblock two years ago over land price. Then the company agreed to set up shop in the 1,200-acre IT City, behind Vedic Village.

Though the state is claiming that 90 acres have been identified for Wipro, government sources told Metro that the IT City project was a non-starter because of lack of infrastructure.

“Even land acquisition for the project is not complete. It is good news for the government that Wipro doesn’t want the land right now. It will give us some more time to develop the area,” said an official.

IT minister Debesh Das, who had earlier set December 2008 as the delivery deadline, admitted that handing over land to Wipro would take some more time. “It might not be possible to hand over the plot by the end of this year.”