Digital India Act necessary, says TCS chairman

BENGALURU: Digital India Act is necessary because so much has changed over the last couple of decades since the original IT Act was put in place, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Chairman N Chandrasekaran said at the company’s Annual General Meeting held on Thursday.

The crisis that has come out of the Russia Ukraine situation will dent the global growth we were seeing and further increase inflation and global GDP is expected to grow at a slower pace, and in this context, India becomes a very important market. India will be in all likelihood the fastest-growing major economy at an estimated 7.8%, he said. Highlighting digital technologies, the chairman said advances in AI, cloud and data have raced forward and in future, every business will be a data and AI business.

In FY22, TCS’ employee strength grew to 5,92,195 with net addition of 1,03,546. He also said the company is taking measures to address the attrition rate. The company’s attrition continued to climb and was at 17.4% in the fourth quarter of last fiscal. Talking about the top management compensation, Chandrasekaran said,

“The company rewards the management for what they bring to the table and the reward mechanism what we believe is the right mechanism.” TCS MD and CEO Rajesh Gopinathan has received Rs 25.76 crore in total compensation in FY22. This is about a 27% jump from his previous pay- Rs 20.36 crore in FY21.

During the AGM, Gopinathan said over the last five years the revenue growth has been steady with a compounded annual growth rate of more than 10% and with a resilient industry-leading operating profit between 24.8 and 25%. In FY22, the IT company saw strong deal wins with total contracts signed during the year standing at $34.6 billion, which is 1.3 times the total revenue of the year. “In FY22, we have spent Rs 2,242 crore in research and innovation activities which represent 1.2% of our annual revenue,” he added.