Tata Consultancy Services Limited. I would like to take you through certain key points regarding the participation at this meeting. The facility for joining the AGM through video conference, other audio visual means, is made available for members. All members who have joined this meeting are by default placed on mute to avoid disturbance arising from any background noise and to ensure smooth and seamless conduct of the meeting. Once the question and answer session starts, the names of the shareholders who have registered as speaker shareholders will be announced one by one. Speaker shareholders will be collected in the audio video mute mode. Once your name is announced, you will be sent a request to unmute your microphone. Kindly unmute your microphone, switch on your camera and speak. If you're not able to switch to video mode for any reason, please use the audio mode only.
To ensure greater clarity and to minimize background noise, we recommend that you use headphones or earphones with a microphone. For a better video experience, please ensure proper lighting at your venue. Kindly ensure that your Wi-Fi is not connected to any devices and no other applications are running on the device. If it is observed that there is a connectivity problem at the speaker shareholder's end, we would ask the next speaker to join. If connectivity improves, we will call those shareholders who had connectivity issues earlier to try again once the other shareholders who have registered complete their turn. Kindly restrict your queries or comments to three minutes to allow maximum participation of the shareholders. For shareholders other than speaker shareholders, a communicate tab is available on the left corner of the screen that you're using for the AGM.
You can post your comments or queries by clicking on this tab. During the AGM, if any shareholder other than speaking shareholder faces any technical issues, please contact the helpline number mentioned in the notice of the AGM or refer to the FAQs available on the NSDL website. If at any time during the AGM you lose connectivity, do check your internet connection and log in once again using the same process. Thank you. I hand over to the chairman. Please.
Good afternoon, shareholders. I would like to welcome all of you to the twenty-seventh annual general meeting of the company. As the requisite quorum is present, I now call the meeting to order. Joining the meeting with me here are Rajesh Gopinathan, CEO and Managing Director, Samir Seksaria, Chief Financial Officer, and Pradeep Gaitonde, the Company Secretary. I now call all the other directors who are on the video conference to introduce themselves. Let me start with requesting Mr. O.P. Bhatt.
Thank you, Chairman. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Om Prakash Bhatt, independent director on this company's board since April 2012. I also chair the nomination and remuneration committee. I'm attending this annual general meeting by video from my residence in Mumbai. I hope you and your family members are healthy and doing well. Thank you. Take care.
Dr. Pradeep Kumar Khosla.
Thank you, Chairman. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Pradeep Kumar Khosla. I'm attending this meeting from my office in San Diego. I'm an independent director on the company's board since January 2018. I also chair the Stakeholders' Relationship Committee. Thank you, everybody, and hope you're all doing well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Hanne Sørensen.
Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Hanne Sørensen, and I've been an independent director on the board of the TCS since 2018. I'm joining this annual general meeting from my residence in Copenhagen, Denmark, and I hope that you and your families are all well and in good health. Thank you.
Keki Mistry.
Thank you, Chairman, and good afternoon, everyone. I am Keki Mistry, Independent Director on the board of TCS since December 2018. I chair the audit and risk management committees. I'm attending this annual general meeting from my office through video conference. Thank you very much.
Sir Don Callahan.
Thank you, Chairman, and good afternoon. I am Don Callahan, Independent Director of the company's board since January of 2019. I a attending this annual general meeting from my residence in New York City, United States. I hope you and your families are all feeling well. Take care.
Aarthi Subramanian.
Thank you, Chairman. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Aarthi Subramanian, director on the company's board since August 2017. I'm attending this annual general meeting from my office on video conference. I hope you and your families are doing well. Take care. Thank you.
N. Ganapathy Subramaniam.
Thank you, Chairman. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm N.G. Subramaniam, Chief Operating Officer and Executive Director on your company's board since February 2017. I'm attending this annual general meeting FY 2022 from my offices, by video conference. I hope you and your family members are doing well. Take care. Thank you very much.
Thank you, all. In addition, we also have other senior executives of the company joining this meeting through video conference from their respective locations. Now, I want to thank all the members today who are joining this meeting. This annual general meeting is being held through video conference in accordance with the circulars issued by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. A live streaming of this meeting is also being webcast on NSDL's website. The company has taken the requisite steps to enable members to participate and vote on the items being considered on the AGM. The registers, as required under the Companies Act, 2013, are open for inspection. Since the notice is already circulated duly to the members, I take the notice convening the meeting as read.
Now, let me share a few thoughts about the environment and the company before I take questions from the shareholders. At the start of this calendar year, the world economic situation looked rather very promising, with an anticipation of a high growth, high inflation environment. The conflict and the crisis that has come out of the Russia-Ukraine situation has imparted a stagflationary impulse. This is going to dent the global growth and at the same time further increase the inflation. We are also currently facing a number of supply chain shocks from higher oil prices, gas, and semiconductor shortages, to name a few. As a result, many of the macroeconomic factors are rather looking a bit difficult, so we are likely to face globally a low growth, high inflation environment.
The global GDP is expected to grow at a slower pace than anticipated, about 3.4% in 2022, which is almost 100 basis points drop from an earlier projection. Global inflation, meanwhile, is expected to climb to above 7%. In this context, India becomes a very, very important market, and India will be, in all likelihood, the fastest-growing major economy at an estimated 7.8%. The last couple of years, the world has seen a number of disruptions, a global pandemic, military conflict, growing inequality, supply chain shortages, and more. Almost a decade worth of experience packed in a couple of years. Businesses across the board have had to cope with this unprecedented set of events with speed, agility, and resilience.
While these changes have had serious impact on businesses and communities, these have also opened up new avenues of growth and created certain specific trends for the future. I would like to call out four specific trends. The first one being a digital transition, a world that is totally determined and accelerated by artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data analytics. Second, an energy transition, which is an irreversible move towards a green economy. Third, a supply chain transition, where the supply chain will get rebalanced for resilience, and there is an India plus opportunity that is emerging. Fourth, a talent transition. Coming age of the talent cloud, a diverse, inclusive, a global talent pool that can be accessed remotely by businesses around the world. All these trends have implications for all businesses, and from your company's perspective, it provides an enormous opportunity.
First, let me talk a little bit about digital. Over the last decade, digital technologies have been rapidly transforming every industry. However, the pandemic has further accelerated this move and forever it has changed the course towards the adoption of technology by businesses, governments, and communities. Advances in AI, cloud, and data have raced forward. In future, every business will be a data and AI business. No industry will escape this revolution. Companies who leverage these technological shifts very well and position themselves for the future will distinctly differentiate themselves from the rest of the pack. With the significant organizational investments in digital that has been made over the years and the kind of talent that has been developed in the company, your company is a very crucial and valuable partner for all customers around the globe to make this transition. Second, energy transition.
As companies think about how to make the energy transition towards a more sustainable future, a net zero target, focus on new technologies and innovation will be key. Areas such as renewable energy, battery storage, carbon capture, decarbonization through other means, including hydrogen, electronic waste management, biodiversity, et cetera, are already generating numerous opportunities. There is a role for AI and IoT to get tightly integrated in the way this transition is happening because most of the businesses are making this transition from a legacy investment that had been made over several decades. Your company, again, has invested a number of offerings towards sustainability and will be a valuable partner for the customer base globally in helping them achieve this transition and achieve their net zero or a positive objective. The third is supply chain.
Going forward, supply chains of all organizations and countries will have to be redesigned. In a manner of speaking, it is already happening, and our customer base is looking at alternative mechanisms to create redundancy and resilience in their supply chain sourcing. It is being designed, again, not only for efficiency and resilience, it is also being designed with the latest technologies on leveraging IoT, AI, and rest of the technologies. In addition, advanced manufacturing technologies such as 3D printing and robotics are transforming the very nature of manufacturing. This is another area in which your company has made significant investments over the years and is positioned to be a valuable partner of choice to help the companies make this transition. Fourth, talent transition.
Focus on talent is going to be most critical for the future because AI, critical thinking, agility, agile way of working, data analytics are all new age skills. Global pools of talent are becoming available for helping companies to make this transition. Your company's investment over the years and continuous focus in building this capability across the workforce in India and abroad is positioning as a talent partner in helping this huge transition. The company has also developed a huge amount of domain expertise, contextual knowledge, and frameworks for advisory services in making a huge amount of transformative initiatives possible in our client base. In all the four dimensions which the world is going to witness, a digital transition, a sustainability transition, a supply chain transition, and a talent transition, your company is extremely well-positioned to help the customers globally to successfully proceed towards the new economy.
Now I want to share a few thoughts about the company's performance. On the business front, the company had a satisfactory year of strong and profitable growth. In rupee terms, in the financial year 2021-22, the company's consolidated revenue was 1,91,754 crore INR, which is growth of 16.8% in rupee terms and 15.4% in constant currency terms. In USD terms, your company crossed a milestone of $25 billion in revenues, experienced a growth of 15.9%, adding incremental revenues of 3.5 billion. This growth came with an industry-leading operating margin of 25.3% and a free cash flow of 36,985 crore INR.
The earnings per share was INR 103.62, growing 16.1% over the prior year. In line with the practice of returning 80%-100% of free cash flow to shareholders and based on company's performance, the directors have recommended a final dividend of INR 22 per equity shares, bringing the total dividend payout for the year to INR 43 per equity share, including three interim dividends of total INR 21 per equity share. Additionally, the company completed its fourth successful share buyback in five years to the tune of INR 18,000 crore at INR 4,500 per share through the tender offer route using stock exchange mechanism, extinguishing four crore equity shares, representing 1.08% of the total paid-up equity share capital.
This translates to a total of INR 38,010 crore in dividend and buyback, including buyback tax of INR 4,192 crore, resulting in a payout of 102.8% of the free cash flow of the company. On the employee front, our employee strength grew to 592,195, with a record net addition of 103,546 employees. While the company continues to enjoy the best retention rates in industry, the addition last year was very high by its own standards, and it is a matter of concern which the company is trying to address by taking suitable measures. The workforce remains highly diverse with over 153 nationalities represented. The company crossed yet another important milestone with the number of women in the workforce crossing 200,000 employees.
The company is also making progress in improving gender diversity in the senior management roles. On the community front, the company works closely with the communities to create equitable, inclusive pathways for all, especially women, youth and marginalized groups. The primary focus areas are education, skilling, employment, and entrepreneurship. Additionally, the company invests in basic health and wellness, water sanitation, hygiene, conservation, and disaster relief effort. The company also supported its employees and their families in dealing with the pandemic, including organizing what was perhaps one of the largest vaccination drives in corporate India for employees, their families, and the extended ecosystem of partners and other Tata Group companies. In closing, I would like to say that as we look forward to the future, there are excellent opportunities that is ahead of us.
Your company is poised well to take a leadership role in partnering with all stakeholders across multiple fronts. With customers, there is a significant potential to help them make the transition across digital, sustainability and supply chain. The company can be the talent partner of choice for all our client base, from advisory as well as transformation agendas. The company is committed to work closely with the communities to make an impact in making a sustainable world. Finally, I remain committed personally to the employees of the company who have delivered yet another year and who day in and day out work towards making their customers happy. Finally, I would like to thank all of you shareholders for your unstinted support from the very beginning since we went IPO in 2004.
I would like to count on your continued support, and I remain extremely grateful for this support. Thank you very much. Now over to Rajesh Gopinathan.
Thank you, Chairman, and good afternoon, dear shareholders. I'll take the next 15-20 minutes to give you a quick overview of the performance of the company and drilling down a few more details into what the chairman has shared. FY 2022 has been a very satisfying year for the company. If you look at performance across all parameters, we had revenue growth of 16.8% in rupee terms for a revenue of INR 1,91,754 crore. We also crossed an important milestone this year, crossing $25 billion in annual revenue, closing the year at $25.7 billion. It was also our highest incremental revenue growth in a year, clocking in at $3.5 billion.
Importantly, this revenue growth has come while we have sustained industry-leading profitability with an operating margin of 25.3% and a net margin of 20%. As the chairman said, the shareholder distribution has been almost 100% of our free cash flow at 99.2% of net profit and slightly more than 100% on the free cash flow side, with a total distribution of INR 38,000 crore in dividends and buybacks during the course of the year. In terms of our workforce, we ended the year with 598,000 associates, forming one of the largest pools of engineering talent anywhere in the world. We are also happy to share that during the course of the year, your company added more than 100,000 associates into this global talent pool.
From a diversity perspective also, we have now more than 200,000 women employees and have employees from across 153 nationalities with us. On climate, I shall drill down a little bit more during the course of the presentation, but we have had a 66% reduction in our Scope 1 and 2 emissions against a base year of 2016, and a 6x increase in our total use of renewable energy.
Finally, in terms of giving back to society, the company CSR programs have now impacted and benefited more than 1.7 million people globally, and your company's employees have contributed more than 700,000 hours in volunteering efforts. 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 profit with operating profits of between 24.8% to slightly more than 25% and an average of slightly more than 25%. Our approach towards shareholder-friendly capital allocation has resulted in us returning 95% of total cash generated during the course of this year. This distribution, we have chosen multiple streams to do it, whether it be dividends, special dividends or buybacks, as described below in this presentation.
On average, we have distributed more than 100% of net profit in these five years. Coming to the most important pillar on which the success of the company is built, I'm happy to share that our approach to customer centricity, which has been the beacon for the company's performance at all points and times, continues to remain strong. We have more than 1,200 customers who contribute more than $1 million in revenue for us. If you look at customer numbers across different revenue bands, we have continuously added to this client franchise, which is the bedrock of our success.
Today, we have 58 customers for whom we generate more than $100 million in annual revenue and 268 customers for whom we generate more than 20 million in annual revenue. The ability to stay relevant to our customers and continuously increase our value to them has resulted in us increasing our revenue per customer from $19.6 million in FY 2017 to $21.7 million in FY 2022. Not just in terms of revenue, but in terms of actual value added. We continue to retain our number one status in terms of customer satisfaction across all our markets.
FY 2022 also saw us enjoy very strong deal wins with total contracts signed during the year of $34.6 billion, which is 1.3 times of the total revenue of the year, laying a strong foundation for future growth. This demand is coming across multiple areas like the chairman mentioned in terms of the key drivers in the world. On a more micro level, when we look at it on demand, there are three areas that we could call out. One is the growth and transformation agenda of our customers across the themes that chairman mentioned, including areas like mergers and acquisitions leading to business model changes, product innovations, customer experience transformation, et cetera.
Cloud and the migration to cloud as a common boundaryless infrastructure layer continues to be a big driver for technology spending globally, and we are very strongly focused on it. We believe that this will continue into the near future to be a major driver of technology transformation globally. Finally, our core offering of outsourcing and both technology and business operations continues to stay relevant to our customer base as they seek both efficiency as well as to free up resources to focus on their transformation agendas and look for global scale and global talent to be able to deliver on their growth aspirations. Coming back to the growth and transformation agenda, we have been sharing with you many stories and individual examples of how this plays out in our customer universe.
We have shared that across the last few years in our annual reports, including this year's. If you look at each of these stories, you will see that there is a focus not just on what your company is doing for the customer, but also in terms of how we are actually working together with them on their innovation and transformation agenda. This example that is highlighted here is from one of our insurance customers in Europe called BMG, where the member of the board is commending TCS for its focus on innovation, its co-innovation framework, and its agile ways of working, which has resulted in them being able to significantly accelerate their transformation agenda.
Our success is built on the bedrock of our talent, and as I shared, we are very happy that we were able to increase our total associate count by more than 100,000 this year, coming to 592,000 associates at the end of the year with a very diverse both gender and nationality mix. We are also happy that our number of women associates in senior roles has increased by 84% over the last 5 years, climbing from 11.7% to 13.3%. We are investing significantly in learning and skilling and re-skilling our workforce to stay relevant to both where the emerging opportunities are and as well as to power our growth and transformation agenda.
Our focus on training has it shows up in the fact that more than 60 million learning hours were clocked via TCSers during the course of last year. More than 170,000 TCSers actually increase their competency level to a mid or senior level across different areas of both technology as well as business. Our focus on learning and skilling has been recognized globally with multiple awards, including LinkedIn acknowledging us as the best culture of learning to the Stevie Awards for Great Employers and the Golden Bridge Award for Business and Innovation. Innovation has been a key theme driving this growth agenda for your company, and we are significantly investing and continuing to invest into this.
During the course of last year, we have spent INR 2,242 crores in research and innovation activities, which represents 1.2% of our annual revenue. Our team of researchers, inventors and innovators is now more than 6,500, and among them we have totally filed more than 6,500 patents and have been granted close to 2,300 patents. Our innovation agenda cuts across multiple dimensions, whether it be in terms of what we call the TCS Pace Ports, which are collaboration labs that we have set up globally.
We have five of them active in cities ranging from Tokyo, Amsterdam, New York, Pittsburgh, Toronto, and we have another four in the pipeline as we seek to bring our customers and our co-innovation network closer together in being able to cultivate this spirit of innovation. We are also conducting multiple forums where more than 1,300 of our customers have joined us in what we call innovation forums, which we do across four locations globally every year. We also conduct one of the world's largest student programming contest called TCS CodeVita, which has recently been recognized by the Guinness World Records as the world's largest computer programming competition for school children.
In terms of our commitment to the progress towards net zero, as you are aware, your company had committed and taken a target of getting to net zero by 2030. I am happy to report that we are well on our way, and we had set our immediate near-term milestone as getting to 70% reduction in scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2025. We have achieved 66% reduction as of this year, so we should be comfortably able to achieve that near-term milestone and actually improve it as we look forward. Overall, our focus on renewable energy has resulted in us increasing our total consumption in renewable energy by 6x, and also has resulted in our current.
For the year, we did about 35% in renewable energy, and today our run rate is at about 60% of our energy consumption comes from renewable sources. Not just are we focusing on sustainability from a TCS consumption perspective, but we are also looking at the overall opportunity that this energy transition and the global focus on sustainability affords us. We have developed a full suite of offerings across the entire spectrum of these areas of interest, ranging from climate change, where our solutions like the TCS Clever Energy, which was perfected for us for internal use, and it's an IoT-based energy management system that is currently live across all TCS locations in India. That has now been externalized and is being adopted by many customers globally.
Going on to human capital workforce, circularity, where again our solutions like TCS Envirozone is being adopted by leading manufacturers, CPG firms, furniture manufacturers and multiple industries, where they're using the solution to identify the instance of plastic and other hazardous materials in their supply chain, and designing it to create strategies for reduction of that, of these materials across their products and their entire supply chain. Going on to supply chain, similarly impact innovation and compliance reporting and governance and over 100 such offerings across the full gamut. This, as the chairman said, represents a significant opportunity for the company to use its both its knowledge of the processes and systems in place in our customer environments, and to marry that with our focus on data to be able to provide solutions that many clients are looking for.
A focus on CSR. We have multiple touchpoints across which we try to impact the communities that we work and live in, including adult literacy program, which now touches more than 7,000 people. BridgeIT, and a very interesting concept where we're using technology to offer livelihood to entrepreneurs across multiple states in India. Youth employment programs. Our focus on Jal Jeevan Mission by the government of India, where we are focusing on improving access to drinking water for the marginal and socially challenged parts of the country. Finally, focus on introducing computational thinking and overall awareness on digital to school children across a wide spectrum through our program called goIT and Ignite My Future in School.
Our collective efforts are translating to a greater focus on our brand, and that is getting acknowledged across all the forums where we participate in. Our investments into sports sponsorships, where our flagship program on marathon sponsorships covers almost all major cities in the world. Onto our increasing focus on branding our services and offerings, and showcasing them has resulted in our total brand value crossing $16 billion. I'm happy to share that your company now is the second most valuable brand in technology services globally, and is now routinely ranked among the top brands globally by reputed firms like Kantar BrandZ and by Brand Finance. During the course of this year, we unveiled yet another dimension in the way we manage our company and our operating model.
We have aligned our operating model to the customer journey through TCS, focusing on the process of acquiring the customer to the early stage of incubating that relationship, on towards the growth stage, where we focus on gaining strategic size with the customer and onto the business transformation side, where we use our position as a trusted strategic partner to be able to drive their transformation journeys. Finally, I want to leave you with our brand anthem, where we say that every business is born out of belief. The belief that you can make an impact, that you have an idea that matters. At TCS, we don't just help businesses transform through technology. We help them make a meaningful difference to connect their aspiration to reality. At TCS, we instill trust into business and hope into enterprise. We are building on belief.
I'm sure this brand anthem resonates very strongly with the values of the company and many of what you hold dear. Thank you all for your continued support and encouragement, and I will hand it back to the chairman now.
Now I request the Company Secretary to explain the process of e-voting on the resolutions.
Thank you, Chairman. The Companies Act 2013 and SEBI listing regulations provide for electronic voting. Accordingly, the company has provided its members the facility to cast their vote through the remote electronic voting system administered by NSDL. Facility for voting at the meeting is also provided for members present here and who have not yet voted. Members, while watching the proceedings of the meeting, may cast their vote on the NSDL e-voting website by using the login methods detailed in note number 18A of the AGM notice at page 53. The facility for voting shall also be made available for 15 minutes after the conclusion of this meeting. Mr. P. N. Parikh, practicing company secretary, has been appointed as scrutinizer to scrutinize the e-voting process in a fair and transparent manner.
Since the AGM is being held through video conference or other audio visual means, and the resolutions mentioned in the notice convening this AGM have already been put to vote through remote e-voting, there will not be any proposing or seconding of these resolutions. Thank you. I hand it over back to the chairman, please.
Now I would like to take questions from the shareholders or any observations they want to make. I will call all the shareholders to restrict their comments to be brief, and let me start with Dr. Arunkumar Boppana.
Dear shareholder, when your name is announced, kindly unmute your microphone, switch your camera on and speak. Our first speaker, Dr. Arunkumar Boppana.
Hello. Can you see me? Hello.
Yes, sir. We can see you. We can hear you loud and clear.
Yeah. Good afternoon, everybody. First, thanks to Pradeep, Deepanker, and Radhika for making this possible. Chairman, sir, I'm very happy with the Padma Bhushan bestowed on you and compliments for acquiring Air India. The Maharaja's blood is not blue. He was the royal mascot for 56 years the world over. Thanks to J.R.D. Tata, it touched many lives. I wish you turn around as soon as possible. Currently, I'm flying Vistara every week. I wanted to present flowers to you, Chairman, sir, but this video conference, I'm very unhappy. It is like,
Can India have 50 big tech companies with a turnover of INR 5,000 crore in the next three-five years as wished by the Minister of State and my friend Rajeev Chandrasekhar? Your comments on that. He has set a target of achieving $400 billion exports by March 2023. Is it achievable? What is the TCS pie? Sir, you're giving time or you want me to restrict to your three minutes?
Three minutes, sir.
Chairman, sir.
Preferably 3 minutes, sir.
What are the prospects?
Yeah, I mean, be quick, boss.
Yeah. What are the prospects to increase jobs? Because there's a great reshuffle in India and people are seeking better compensation and better working conditions. How are you dealing with anxiety, imposter feeling? After two years of remote working, people are suffering with doubts on their skills, et cetera. What is TCS action? Sir, will IT make recordings of evidence official? It can address certain issues for simpler disposal of court cases, bridge the digital divide in the country for litigants and lawyers. Baby steps of IT will make justice speedy and transparent, all of us will be happy. Sir, TCS has done path-breaking work in Passport Seva program. Can we do this in the airport security checks? Sir, the worrying thing is cyber crimes. IT has made life easy for us in many ways.
IT gives cyber criminals to take away all the benefits. They are faceless, anonymous, can loot from remote. They're always stay ahead of investigating agencies. They are aware of weak laws, poor conviction rate. They are products of poverty and unemployment. Lack of action for quick convictions, lack of bandwidth to investigate. How can we cut down on crime, sir? Chairman, sir, this is IT is like we dig gold, we find gold, we dig gold, we melt, we make ornaments. Then we are afraid of thieves, and we hire security guards, and we fear security guards will kill us. IT, cyber crimes are a fear for all of us, sir.
Sir, in conclusion, with the war in Ukraine and the IT world making the world very small, will there be a father from one country, a mother from a different country, born in a different country to grow, study and live in a different country, marry in a different country? Be a global citizen, will that reduce the wars? Finally, sir, in conclusion, TCS should always be right using its might. TCS should never be dogmatic. The results should always be dramatic. TCS should aim to give peace, remaining a masterpiece. I wish you all the best. I hope to see you next week when I'm back to Mumbai, sir. I'm currently in Taj Yeshwantpur, Bangalore. Stuck up here. Thank you very much, Chairman, sir. All the best.
Thank you, Arun. Mr. Gautam Tiwari.
Sir, can you listen me, sir?
Yes, I can.
You can see me also, no, sir?
I can see you also.
Oh, so nice to see you, sir. First of all, I'm very happy to see you and meet you, although by virtual meeting in this connection for the first time this year. I congratulate you for various awards that you are getting. We are reading day by day the progress of your personal and professional both ways, sir, and we are extremely happy to have you here, and we are extremely proud of you being here with us. Very, very good evening to all our eminent and very well dignified Board of Directors, including our honorable Chairman, sir, our TCS team and fellow shareholders. My name is Gautam Tiwari, and I'm participating at this AGM from Mumbai as usual. Sir, many of my questions have been already answered.
In fact, when I was listening to your introductory speech and even from Mr. Rajesh Gopinathan, when I was listening to it very carefully, and I'm happy for the progress and the tremendous work that TCS has done international level also and domestic level, during the year under consideration. Sir, I'm very happy that our company has worked very hard in identifying the areas and projects for CSR activities and which are very beneficial to the public at large in various fields like education, skill and all other departments. Many, many thanks to the concerned department for this. Sir, I would like to specially thank our MD & CEO, CFO, CS and finance team, along with the entire management, including all staff and employees for their classic and their outstanding performance during the year under consideration.
Sir, I would also like to thank the management for paying INR 22, that is 220% dividend. Sir, the company's strong position and your confidence is already expressed while doing the buyback for at the rate of INR 3,000 last year and this year at the rate of INR 4,500, which speaks quite a lot, I mean, quite a bit about the volumes of growth that the company has achieved along with in your leadership. Sir, I thank our secretary and finance team for drafting very meticulously the balance sheet and the notice and disclosing the same well in advance also for their excellent investor care and investor service, sir.
I thank our NSDL and Zoom and Webex and Chorus technical team for their unique cooperation and individual attention to each and every shareholder speaker so as to attend the meetings very much smoothly and for their excellent investor service. I thank the management for choosing such diamond-like personalities. Very few queries which I have got, I'll be glad if you can answer them now or even afterwards. Sir, how many shares and dividends have been transferred to IEPF and investors protection fund during the year under consideration? Unclaimed dividend, I mean. Sir, how much temporary casual workers and permanent workers do we have on our boards this time? Sir, our attrition rate, I had heard, I had read meantime that it was increasing.
Now is it under control and any efforts that you have been taking to minimize the same? Sir, what is our male-female ratio of our staff employees, especially the permanent level, and how many physically handicapped people, I mean, employees we have got on board? Very important, sir. Sir, how much is the decline and the impact of Russia and Ukraine war and high chemical, high gas oil and these diesel oil prices on our business during the year under consideration? Sir, TCS has always taken care of the small shareholders and multiplied their wealth year on year from IPO time of 2004.
At INR 850 each and every year, we have multiplied the wealth of our shareholders for which we are very much grateful and thankful to you. We have got the eminent directors like Mr. O.P. Bhatt, Rajesh Gopinathan, CEO CFO, Keki Mistry, and under your leadership we are doing the maximum to this year. Sir, lastly, I'm a shareholder of your company from day one and, that is from IPO time. In all your companies also we'll be seeing you later also. We have a total trust. Our full family has got total trust, confidence, and faith in the management, and I support very strongly the appointment, the reappointments and all the resolutions, for today's agenda, and I already voted in favor of them all.
I wish you all a very bright future, a very long, supporting, safe, happy, prosperous life with a bright and shiny future in the days to come. Thank you very much, sir. Thank you very much, sir. Jai Hind. Jai Bharat. Vande Bharat. Jai Maharashtra. Thank you very much, sir. God bless you.
Thank you. Mr. Hiranand Kotwani.
Yes, sir. Good afternoon. Are you audible?
Yes, yes. Good afternoon.
Hello. It's a great pleasure to join you. Pride and pleasure. Namaste to all because some of our attendees are there in the afternoon. Coming to the point, rather sycophancy. Sir, gentlemen, our notice approval of existing material related transaction. Will you clarify this? What type of this transaction took place in our organization with our Tata Sons and other companies? What type of these transaction? How much amount we are doing? Because this our organization is rich. Are they helping other organization? What is your call? Please explain. Second thing, I heard, I read here from balance sheet some word transfer of special economic zone to reinvestment reserve. Please explain this also. Certainly I congratulate for your $16 billion brand. There is little room to criticize because our organization done well. Very good.
One thing I want to know from you the what type of, how many sexual harassment cases are reported in our organization globally, and how you will dealt with? Any case outside our organization that gone to the court? Lastly, just I have to conclude. Page number 85, gentlemen. Detail remuneration for the year end 31st 2022. You are not taking commission. Thanks. Some other commission, INR 250 lakhs. All are 250. What is the. Would you please explain what type of commission we give to this director, Keki M. Mistry and other Mr. O.P. Bhatt? Sitting fee I understand, the director attending the sitting fee. Will you elaborate on what type of commission we give to the director? Lastly, auditor remuneration. We, how many, we give the remuneration to the auditor. We pass the resolution.
Resolution number two for the five years. Total amount of auditor we paid regularly, yearly, quarterly. What about the internal auditor or external auditors? Globally, how we give the payment? Are we outsourcing others also or all the work is done in India? Will you elaborate this also? Thank you and good luck ahead.
Miss Alka Karnani.
Hello.
Ma'am.
Yes. Very good afternoon, respected Chairman, sir, and members on the board. I'm Alka Karnani, a proud shareholder of the company and a member of Millennium Mams Kolkata chapter. Sir, I have two questions. First, with the inflation-led pricing pressures and liquidity crunch, companies are likely to delay or curtail their technology spends. How much of an impact do you see on our company? Second, the attrition rate at TCS is lowest compared to the peers. Congratulations for that, sir. Can you please share with us the reasons for the attrition? Sir, Millennium Mams' advice to Tata would be to provide more residential amenities and innovative perks to reduce attrition. Thank you.
Mr. Manoj Kumar Gupta.
Hello, sir. Hello?
Manoj.
Yes, sir. Good afternoon.
Afternoon.
How are you, sir?
I'm very good. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. Sir, respected Chairman, board of directors, fellow shareholders, myself, Manoj Kumar Gupta, I'm a proud shareholder of TCS. I've joined this meeting from Kolkata, my residence. Sir, first of all, I congratulate you on the honor by the Government of India with second-highest civilian award, Padma Bhushan. Sir, I congratulate you as a shareholder of all Tata Group companies for acquisition of Air India, which was a dream of our Chairman Emeritus Mr. Ratan Tata to acquire after 60 years, that you have succeeded to acquire that. I again congratulate you to acquire Neelachal Ispat Nigam Limited under the umbrella of Tatas. Now, my thanks to MD and CEO for the excellent result of the company and company secretary and his team for support us to join this meeting through VC.
I find in Tata that they keep in touch with the shareholders after getting mail from the shareholders for speaker registration. It's a good tradition, sir. Sir, I thank management for their successful buyback, a big buyback of shares of the company, and good dividend in spite of in this current situation of the economy, you have paid the INR 43 dividend for equity share. It's a good thing. Sir, what impact will come on the IT companies through war between Russia and Ukraine? What impact has come and what impact you expect, that how you will face that challenge? Sir, have you any plan to launch new centres, new campus for the young generations in the country, in the northeast part of the country like Assam, Tripura is growing fast after becoming the Indian government there.
People of Assam and Arunachal, Nagaland want to pass IT and join some IT companies. Have you any plan to launch some new campus in that region, sir? Sir, digital money motivation by the government and the private sector. How do you see the future of digitalization? Because our beloved Prime Minister always focus on digital. What is your view in that regard? In your opening remarks, you have touched some sound views about the digitalization. What is your future prospects about the digitalization of the things? TCS should develop a software to help IRCTC for passenger train ticket reservation, like as passport. Government has given you passport, the task, so you should develop another software which can help the IRCTC to help the people to get reservation at earliest.
Wheth er you have any tie-up with the income tax software system newly developed by Infosys. I thank you for your CSR because if I will say anything on CSR, that's like a suraj ko deepak dikhana. Sir, last but not least, how many investors recorded as attendance? Sir, it's our pleasure to invite you to visit this city of joy. You should come to Kolkata. Every year you are assuring us in the AGM that, "I will come." So again, I request you, spare some time to visit this city of joy. Thank you, sir.
Thank you, Manoj. Radha Saraf?
Good afternoon, sir. I'm Radha Saraf, a member of Millennium Mams', Mumbai chapter, and also a proud shareholder. Padma Bhushan N. Chandrasekaran, many, many congratulations, sir. We would love to come to Bombay House and congratulate you in person. Do consider our request. Congratulations again, sir. TCS has a problem of plenty. Instead of distributing dividend to us shareholders, it is a humble suggestion that it should be accumulated instead, and we should have money in the war chest for a takeover like Elon Musk for Twitter. Sir, my second question is, work from home is a new culture. You have mentioned 25% of employees will only work from office by 2025. Currently, employee cost is almost 56% in the P&L. Since offices are leased, will this majorly reduce the salary and admin costs? Please elaborate on this. Thank you, sir.
Thank you, ma'am. Ashok Subramaniam?
Mr. Ashok Subramaniam is not logged in. Neither is Mr. HS Patel. We could move on to the next speaker.
Kaushik Shawka?
Good afte rnoon, sir. I hope I'm audible, sir. I'm audible?
Yeah.
Good afternoon, everyone. First off, I would like to thank board of directors for giving me opportunity to, again, to speak in this forum. Many of you would remember me from the conversation we had in first. I will keep both my ask and introduction brief. I hope I'm audible.
You are. Yes, you are.
Yeah. Myself, Kaushik Shawka, a qualified chartered accountant from Mumbai. I have been suffering from dystonia, which has rendered 55% of my body paralyzed, impacting my right hand, my right leg, and a speech. While I have not let that come in my way of becoming a chartered accountant and practicing, I do request your support in helping me continue to be self-reliant. I hope I am clearly audible till now.
Hello.
Hello.
Yeah, please continue.
Yeah. I was optimistic after our conversation we had last year about me working for our organization on certification work, including Form 15CB. However, nothing has progressed since. While I understand things may not have progressed due to pandemic situation last year, I do hope that after our conversation today, our organization will start engaging me in this area as soon as possible. Once again, thank you for giving me opportunity to speak today, and I hope to see a positive feedback with my ask. I support all the resolution. Also, I request you to please provide the reply for my ask. Lastly, as company is witnessing a slowdown in spending from USA and other foreign companies where company operates or is likely to decline in near future. Thank you once. Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. S.P.
Jaymin sir, can you see me and hear me?
Yes, I can.
Sir, at the outset, I congratulate the management on excellent results, and I welcome Mr. Samir Seksaria as our new CFO, and also Mr. Pradeep Manohar Gaitonde as the new company secretary. I hope Mr. Gaitonde is as shareholder friendly as Mr. Rajendra Moholkar. Sir, coming to why you are not holding a shareholders meeting in physical form. When the companies like LIC can hold the meeting, pre-IPO meet physically, why not TCS? You should think over it because that will give a chance for the shareholders to meet everybody. Sir, coming to a thing. Sir, why you transfer INR 1,500 crore to PM CARES Fund? Our Tata Trusts could have done a better job rather than the PM CARES Fund.
Sir, do not take any contracts of government like what Infosys burned their fingers in in this Aadhaar and also in the income tax portals. Sir, revenue was almost INR 2 lakh crore this year. When can we expect INR 3 lakh crore? Sir, moderator should say the speaker number. Sir, dividend. I would like you to control the dividend and instead go for some acquisitions. Sir, why Tata Group cannot have a registered share transfer agent? Like earlier, Indian Hotels we had, and even Tata Central Share Department was there. With so many companies, it's very difficult for the RTA to deal with the shareholders, and there is no service given by the RTA. If you see on page 96, 94, INR 6.28 crore was transferred as unclaimed dividend.
The RTA just sent the letter and then keep on harassing the shareholders when they try to claim the dividends. Please ensure that you do your own thing. You have your own RTI agent. Because I am also having a similar problem when I try to claim unclaimed dividends. Sir, thank you and all the best for the future.
Thank you. Mr. Santosh Kumar Saraf.
(Fl)
Sir, company (Fl)
Thank you. Hema Gupta.
A very good afternoon, sir. I'm Hema Gupta, a member of Millennium Mams', Mumbai chapter, and a proud shareholder of TCS. My question to you is, sir, India is only 5% of the TCS global revenue. Keeping in mind our PM Modi Ji's vision of making India a 5 trillion economy by 2027, how is TCS changing the geographical revenue ratio more in India's favor? What, if any, are the constraints to TCS exponential growth? My another question is, Mr. Vishnu Dhanuka, our mentor, asked you whether you will be a disruptor or will be disrupted. You said both. Congratulations for continuously disrupting. Please elaborate on how TCS is doing the disruptive innovations in DNA computing and cognitive robotics. Thank you, sir.
Tamal da.
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Good afternoon, Chairman N. Chandrasekaran Saab, Rajesh Gopinathan Saab, O.P. Bhatt Saab, Keki M. Mistry Saab, and other directors of the company. Nice to see all of you with good health and spirit. Myself, Tamal Kumar Majumdar, an equity shareholder from Kolkata. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Rajesh Gopinathan, for sharing your thoughts with us. Sir, my special thanks to our new company secretary, Mr. Pradeep Gaitonde, for sending the link or for joining the meeting. All the best to him. Our old friend, Rajendra Moholkar, retired from service during 2022. Though a bit of introvert, Rajendra is one of the best company secretaries of our time. True to his spirit of the group, he advocated for listening to shareholders for value addition. We all wish him good health and spirit in the coming years.
During 2022, TCS declared excellent results, completing another buyback of shares, and also announced good dividend for its shareholders under your leadership. Our heartfelt gratitude to you and your dedicated team for such all-round success during the years. I have gone through the annual report as well as reports of subsidiaries for financial year 2022 and have some queries relating to its audited accounts and other matters. Like earlier years, seek your indulgence because I may not be able to complete it within three minutes. Sir, during the year, all our industry verticals grew in the mid- to high teens during the last quarter as well as fourth quarter. Everything, everybody, you, Mr. Ma, Mr.
Gopinathan mentioned the figures, but what it appears from the above that during the Q4 of financial 2022, retail and CPG, technology and communications and media verticals fared better than full year average growth rate. Whereas growth in life science and healthcare, financial services verticals in Q4 financial 2022 was much less than the yearly average. Would you please share your thoughts in this regard, how these verticals are doing during the first quarter of 2023 or financial year 2023, and your expectation from them during the full year? Sir, rupee closed all-time low of INR 77.74 against U.S. dollar yesterday.
The reason behind the drop in the value of rupee could be blamed on the demand for riskier assets, increase in global crude oil prices, and also because the foreign investors continue to dump domestic stocks. In this bleak scenario, do you expect gain in dollar terms as regards Q1 of financial 2023 or financial results of our company? Would you please share your thinking on rupee dollar term model? Sir, our operating margin and net margin for financial year 2022 were 25.3% and 20% respectively. For Q4 of financial year 2022, it was 25% and 19.6% respectively. Taking into account annual increment, increased subcontractor usage, increased traveling expenses, do you believe that the company will be able to keep the operating margin and net margin intact like financial year 2022 during financial year 2023?
Sir, it is nice to note that during Q4 of financial year 2022, accounts receivable was 64 days at DSO or days sales outstanding, three days down from Q1 of financial year 2021 on yearly basis, and on yearly basis, four days down in comparison to financial year 2021. What was its financial impact on our accounts during financial year 2022? Due to decrease in DSO by 4 days, what was its financial impact on our accounts during financial year 2022? And what is your target in this regard for financial year 2023? Sir, as per page 325 of the integrated annual report for financial year 2022, the company granted loan to a party other than subsidiaries aggregating to INR 13,665 crores during the year, and balance outstanding on 31 March 2023 or 2022 was INR 5,386 crores.
It is in the audit report, sir. It is in the audit report. Would you please share the name of the party, reason for such loan, and interest rate amount charged to them during financial year 2022? What is the status of the loan as of date, and whether it was given to a group company? Sir, it is nice to note that on March 21, 2022, U.S. Supreme Court denied Epic's petition seeking review of the order. It is mentioned in page 305 of the annual report. What is the present status of this dispute? When do you expect completion of all formalities in this regard? Sir, the company during financial year 2021 provided INR 1,218 crores or $165 million against the claim.
Pursuant to U.S. court procedure, a letter of credit was issued to Epic for INR 3,331 crores, equivalent to $440 million as financial security in order to stay the execution of the judgment and pending post-appeal proceedings. What is the revenue impact in our P&L account as regards the letter of credit is concerned? Do you believe that the provision of INR 1,218 crores will be able to meet entire liabilities when the case will be over? Sir, it is nice to note that TCS used to share audited accounts of TCS Foundation with the shareholders, whereas Infosys, as usual, only shared a 35-page colored booklet without any audited accounts of Infosys Foundation with its shareholders. It's a good sign.
During financial year 2022, our company transferred a whopping 94% of total CSR expenditure of INR 727 crore or INR 680 crore to TCS Foundation against last year's figure of INR 351 crore. The transfer was nearly double. Double in relation to last year. I'm sorry to note that the foundation failed to utilize the funding properly. During financial year 2022, it utilized only 48% of the total income of INR 730 crore, which includes our company's contribution of INR 680 crore, against last year's utilization of 78% of total income of INR 440 crore. As a result of this less expenditure, retained earnings balance as on March 31, 2022 increased to a whopping INR 1,466 crore as on March 31, 2022, against last year's figure of INR 1,087 crore.
The board of the foundation must be active in more utilization of the fund received mainly from the parent as well as interest income. Please share your view in this regard. Sir, it is unique to note.
I think if you can bring it to a close.
Huh?
If you can finish your questions.
I think I have another two questions. I have not attended last year's AGM. I thought you will allow me that also. Sir, it is unique to note that Ajoyendra Mukherjee, one of the directors of TCS Foundation, though retired from executive capacity during 2019, is still showing as executive VP and head HR in the BSE.com, BSE website. Sir, during the last two years, the company bought back and extinguished 9.33 crores equity shares. four crores during financial year 2022 and 5.33 crores during financial year 2021. Last bonus declared was during 2018 at 1:1.
Taking into account nearly 366 crores equity of rupees one each as paid up capital as on 31 March 2022, whether the management will go for further reduction of capital, abandoning issue of bonus shares in the coming years. Will you share your thoughts in this respect? Sir, as far as Diligenta is concerned, its profit decreased from GBP 28.271 million to GBP 12.61 million. What is the reason for such abnormal decrease? Whether do you expect further erosion due to change of tax from 19% to 23% with effect from 1/4/2023? Sir, lastly, I'm attending meetings, company meetings for more than 25 years, taking part in CS discussion all over India.
With the experience gathered during the long period, I wrote a book titled The Undercover Bank: A Journey into Corporate Accounting, which will be published during end July or early August. I seek yours and others blessings in this regard. Thank you all for patient hearing.
Thank you, Tamal. Sailesh Mahadevia.
Respected chairman, distinguished directors, and all the members of the company. Sir, let me congratulate our TCS for an excellent integrated report which has been presented in the current year, giving an idea of all the five capitals of the company and how they have been used for creating value during the year. Sir, this report was further supplemented by your initial remarks and also by our managing director's presentation, which has given us a complete picture about which we are very happy, not only as an individual company, but as one of the best companies in the world. I am a proud shareholder of our company right from its inception, and will continue to do so. Sir, as far as our CSR activities are concerned, they're also excellent. You have given report on a regular basis.
Sir, one thing which I would like to appreciate is our contribution under CSR to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, which has completed 100 years, and we have assured them right from the designing stage to the publication of a volume on this. Sir, my congratulations. This will be one of the highest contributions to the society for many years to come. Sir, can you just share how much money we are likely to spend on this entire project? Sir, I would also like to appreciate the cooperation from the secretarial department. Sir, now a few questions with a view to increase my understanding and appreciation of the working of our company. Sir, my first question is: What is the percentage of revenue from our digitalization services?
Sir, second, I would like to know what is the EVA of our company and the rate at which it has been calculated, rate of interest at which it has been calculated. Sir, the world GDP forecast, as given day before yesterday by the World Bank, has been reduced for the year from 4.1% to 2.8%. Sir, may I know how this fall in growth is likely to affect our industry and our company in particular? Sir, my next question is regarding ESG rating. ESG services, we are one of the best in the country. Sir, I would like to know whether we are being rated by international agencies and what is our ESG rating. Sir, what I notice is that in the managing director's report, total elimination has been made of ISO registrations.
So far, we have been getting one full paragraph on the subject. Sir, I have no objection to this, but I would just like to understand whether the same thing is being covered even without mentioning our registration. Sir, my last question is that the women employees in our organization is 35%. Sir, what I would like to know is that the attrition rate, although the lowest at about 17% in the industry, may I know if the attrition rate among women employees is lower than among the male employees? Sir, with this, I conclude my observation and wish our organization success in all aspects, and it is the way of life as our, as far as our company is concerned. Thank you very much for your kind listening.
Thank you, sir. Humayun Purdehi.
Hello, can you hear me, sir?
Yes, I can hear you.
Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Good afternoon, sir. We are missing you. Physically, we all used to meet you every year at the AGM of TCS. We used to interact, all of us, and we are missing all that. Of course, the human touch. Now, sir, I want to say is, TCS has given us a lot. In, lot means a lot as investments. There's no need for me to say in what way, in buyback, in bonus, in dividend, et cetera, et cetera. Now, sir, I want to ask you is, abroad, are there any restrictions with respect to the pandemic anywhere at the moment, at present in the world? Because sometimes we read in U.K. there are restrictions, here there are restrictions, and there there are restrictions. So what about China? Do we still have relations in China, sir, business dealings? I would like to know.
Sir, one thing I must congratulate you. Last year, we complained a lot about this Chorus. This time you have gone into Zoom. This is what I appreciate. You have listened to our grievance of our shareholders. Chorus was there and there used to be so much disruption, and last year I couldn't even speak because of Chorus. This time you went into Zoom. This is what we appreciate. You taking action when something is really wrong about it and correcting it. I agree with Aspi. Regarding these transfer agents, there are very few and they are overloaded. Please do something about it. Please have your own transfer agent or do something. Have your own system in your office. There are things that can be done. There are very few and they are not up to the mark. We, your shareholders suffer a lot.
Sir, I have two comments on Essential Services Act, I mean, when during time of pandemic and lockdown. Sir, what about the Russian and Ukraine link? I'm sure in Russia we have our offices. Sir, did we have in Ukraine? Sir, have they been affected? I would like to know. Sir, congratulations for acquiring Air India. Sir, I have traveled, and I'm very happy with their services. There is no problem with respect to that, I must say that. Sir, one more thing I want to know. Just curious to know about the attrition rate. Sir, when the employees leave, sir, do they join our competitors or do they go abroad for better prospects of further education? Sir, just curious to know as you have mentioned this topic. Sir, I will close here. I'm happy to meet Mr.
O.P. Bhatt, our very, very old director and chairman of SBI. Used to meet him every year during SBI, and it was a real pleasure talking to him and, you know, addressing him those days. Hope that you remember me. I hope you remember me. I'm Humayun Purdehi. I think I shared all my videos for you to see me. Yes. Now, sir. Yes. Oh my God. It is gone. Sir, we appreciate Mr. N. Chandrasekaran for whatever you're doing for our company. Trying to hold it best, trying to bring it up, trying to give shareholder value. Mr. N. Chandrasekaran, we appreciate that. We appreciate your entire management, and we hope you. We know, we are confident you will continue to do the same. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Mr. Dharav Jamadar.
Good evening, sir. I hope I'm audible and visible.
You are.
First of all, congratulations, sir, on awarding Padma Bhushan, and I would like to congratulate each and every stakeholder of TCS on getting a commendable result and getting industry-leading performance in this particular financial year. I highly appreciate not only the financial performance of my company, but also its holistic performance, starting from second most valuable brand in IT services globally by Brand Finance. Ranked number one in customer satisfaction of European business by Whitelane Research. The Rebegin initiative, which was particularly launched for women, it is very much applaudable. Making a Guinness World Record by conducting TCS CodeVita, winning big government contracts, investing immensely in intellectual capital and patents, et cetera. It's a big thing which I highly appreciate. Now, certain questions which I would like you to oblige me by answering them.
What and how are companies innovating in the field of metaverse, as according to the Bloomberg Intelligence, it is going to have a market of almost around 800 billion by 2024. Second, with such a vibrant cash in hand, our company can acquire or, if not full, in some part, companies like Gather, which is a platform for video conferencing. Unity Software, a company which is behind 70% of top 1,000 games all over the world. Is there any on our company's list which you would like to share upon? Third, assessing the recent scenario of turbulence, inflation, recession in U.S., Latin America and Europe, which of our industry segment do you think would be having the highest hit? What is our strategy to protect the earnings from the particular sector?
Good afternoon to all of you. My name is Lekha Shah from Mumbai.
Sir, I'm happy that I'm through the general field of PR activity. Sir, for me it's amazing, so I thank you continuously organizing meeting. This will be continued to other company. Sir, I had many questions to ask you, but they are all covered with the previous speakers. There is one question. Has there been any types of COVID second wave?
Okay, we have lost her. Lekha Shah, can you connect again or I'll come back to you? Mr. Sharad Kumar Shah.
Mr. Sharad Kumar Shah has not logged in. Neither has Nirupama Shah.
Prakashini Shenoy?
Hello? Hello. Hello, can you hear me, sir?
Yes, I can.
Sir, I'm Prakashini Shenoy from Bombay. Respected honorable Chairman, other dignitaries on the board, and my fellow shareholders, good evening to all of you. I received the annual report well in time, which is colorful, informative, and contains all the information as per the corporate governance. I thank the company secretary and his team for the same. Sir, we are living in the days where everything is unpredictable, like including our lives. In such circumstances, running a company like ours is a great thing. I appreciate Chairman, sir. I'm thankful to the board for granting... Hello? Hello.
Yes, ma'am.
Can you hear me, sir?
Yeah, please continue, ma'am.
Yeah, yeah. Sir, I wanted to ask many questions, but most of them are covered by my predecessors, so I don't want to repeat. I have just one question. What was the effect of COVID-19 on our company and what are its challenges? Do we come under the purview of GST? If yes, what are the rates? Sir, is there any change on our company after the inception of new budget in the parliament during February? I wish the company good luck for a bright future and pray God that the profit of the company shall reach the peak in due course. Sir, I support all the resolutions put forth in today's meeting. Thank you, sir.
Thank you, ma'am. Atanu Saha. Unmute yourself.
We seem to have a connectivity issue here with Mr. Saha's audio connection. Perhaps you could move on to our next speaker. Pushkar Kanvinde is also not present, so we could try Ms. Mascarenhas.
Hello. Can you hear me? Hello?
Yes, ma'am.
Am I audible?
Yes, ma'am.
I'm audible now. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Respected Chairman, Mr. N. Chandrasekaran, Mr. Rajesh Gopinathan, other members of the board, my fellow shareholders. I am Mrs. Mascarenhas speaking from Mumbai. First of all, I will thank the company secretary and his team for sending me e-annual report and also registering me as a speaker on my request and a very good platform where we can see you and you can see us and audible also. Very good than last year. Thank you so much. Thank you whole team. Our annual report is very informative and very self-explanatory. The way it is laid down, very easy to read. Thank you so much. Thanks the whole secretarial team. Good working in spite of very difficult economic conditions in India and all over the world with COVID and now geopolitical. We are very happy.
Good dividend, good buyback. Only thing, very few shares were accepted. We wanted more to be accepted because we were getting INR 4,500 in these difficult days was really appreciated. Whatever, something better than nothing. Also you have rewarded us with a good bonus. Thank you so much. Thanks to the whole TCS team. Now, congratulations for all the awards received and also very good CSR and also very good working on ESG. I would like to know, even my predecessor, Sailesh Mahadevia has also asked, that whether rating is done and if a rating is done, ESG, what is our rating? Now my queries, of course, as many questions are already asked by my predecessors, I don't have much, just basics I will ask.
Now as COVID is in the form of Omicron and vaccination is taken by most of the people, how much of the percentage of the staff is working in the office? Did we have any operations center in Ukraine and Russia? If so, are they still working or closed? Number three, sir, I'm very happy with your leadership. Your leadership is very good and by taking Air India, which Air India has come back to us, which was supposed to be ours. I know you will not leave any stone unturned by making with your leadership Air India very, very profitable at the earliest as good as you did in passport issuance. Now, TCS gives such a very good service in the issue of the passport. I myself went for renewal, and I had no problem.
Within one hour, the passport was issued. Thank you very much. Your work is very good. Now I feel you should do also in Tata registry work in-house as the TCS management is very good. Earlier also, Tata Consultancy was doing the registry work and it was housed in Lotus House at Metro, and we were having no hassles in transferring. Now we have got a lot of hassles in dematting our shares. What happened, sir? We are so attached with Tata Group, I was not feeling like demat. Now, without demat, our share certificate is just a piece of paper, no valuation. Now we are going for dematting and we are getting lots of hassles, sir. You to try to do, you come with the registry.
If you can change that Air India in within one-two years, I think registry work also you will go in a very beautiful manner because whatever registrars they have too much work and they, I don't find them that they can manage that well. We need now dematting very important because we have already crossed 70 and we need the funds very badly for our medical treatment. We don't get the shares. It takes six months to demat. Sir, please try to do something about it. Rest, I am very happy. I support all the resolutions. I pray for your good health and the health of our full team, our full TCS team. With this, I thank you very much. Now Mr. Mascarenhas, he is also registered. He will just continue because we are on one device. Thank you so much.
Respected Chairman, sir, very distinguished members of the board, and my fellow shareholders, good evening to you all. My name is Aloysius Mascarenhas. At the outset, I thank the management, our company secretary and his team for sending me the e-balance sheet, which I received on time. It is informative, transparent and adhering to all the parameters required for a good corporate governance. Our results are very good. I've shown facts and figures in print, and they are really good compared to the economic situation which we are facing now and in the past. In spite of that, you have given a handsome dividend. We most welcome it. Now, sir, I would like to know the geopolitical scenario which has hampered the world around, how it has hampered our activity in and around the world. Most
Another important question I would like to ask you, are we listed in the Nasdaq? I would like this information. Rupee-dollar is very dicey. How profitable it is because if we are paid by the foreigners in dollars, we stand to gain. What is our income in this regard? Most important, we are suffering from this demat. Sir, now the seven year lock-in period, if we don't claim the dividend, it goes to the IEPF.
It also-
Now, not only that, surprisingly, I have got one share where I had forgotten to encash it, 2015. Seven years have passed. My dividend has gone. Okay, forget it. They are taking away my shares. How can they take the shares? Dividend you can, it's pardonable, but the shares, if it's gone, we are finished. Kindly look on this aspect, sir. We are senior citizens. I'm 73 years old. I'm facing a lot of problems in this regard. Sir, you are a person with a Midas touch. Whatever you touch turns into gold. Air India is a good investment. I would like, as a shareholder of Tatas and Air India, which is in our group, a senior citizen discount will be most appreciated. With this, sir, I thank you.
Thank the management and everybody, employees, all the very best in the days and years to come. With this, sir, thank you very much for your patient hearing.
Mr. Dinesh Kotecha.
My video is not working today. I don't know, some problem has occurred.
Yeah, very well.
Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon, sir. Namaskaram to all of you. Sir, thanks for the integrated annual report physical copy received by me. Sir, today, one of the Tata companies had a physical AGM in Pune. We as TCS are holding this VC meeting and not holding a physical meeting. I was just wondering why we could also not have held a physical meeting. A disciplined physical, orderly physical meeting could have been held in Bombay. Sir, what has happened is that you are the sponsors of IPL 2022. You had lakhs of spectators at the stadiums without mask. You yourself were also seen at Wankhede Stadium in one of the matches without mask. Why now no physical meeting is held?
I'm just wondering, you know, just following the law as per SEBI prescription is not going to, I mean, take us further. We should have kept a physical meeting in spite of the law. That would have been appreciated by me, sir. Secondly, sir, everything is, you know, disciplined, orderly, about TCS, everything is a landmark. You are a trendsetter. The management results, payouts, annual report, business impact everything is worth evaluating. It is extraordinary above par. Sir, page number 29. Do we need to have 856 investors meet? Have you analyzed as to the investment made in each in our company from or by the attendee companies or institutions in our company? Those who attended those meetings, how much investments have they made?
How much could have been spent on some on such meetings sir, I would like to know. Sir, N. Chandrasekaran ji, you are the third or the fourth chairman of TCS. From 1975, the first campus interview of IIT Bangalore with 15 students who became the first TCS employees to enter a formal graduate training program under FC Kohli, who was our chairman for 26 years. Then Mr. S. Ramadorai for 12 years. Then Mr. Palan ji for less than two years. Now you are there as a chairman from 2009, for the last 13 years. Sir, everything has grown multifold, with TCS being the best corporate citizen on all criteria. Sir, we have taken over Tejas Networks. I mean, I would like to know what is the rationale and how it will be integrated in TCS or in our group.
Sir, dividends I appreciate INR 43, 21 + 22 as against last year INR 38 total. Buyback INR 4,500, appreciate. Payout 96%, appreciate. Sir, Mr. Rajesh Gopinathan explained everything to us about the best part of the company. Page 189. Employee turnover in 2019-20 was 13.3%. In the pandemic period, it had gone down to 7.5% and now it is up to 17.5%. Somebody said that is the best compared to other companies. But compared to our own internal assessment, it is the highest in the last three years, sir. Sir, page 199. Fraud by employees or fraud, bribery, corruption cases. There were three in the last year and current year and two in the last year.
What is the extent of damage due to this particular fraud, bribery, and corruption? I'd like to know the amount. Sir, is the revenue increase on a constant currency basis, on a comparative basis? I would like to know. Because nowhere in the balance sheet this is written that is on a constant currency basis. Sir, I'm now particularly interested in page number 326 and 327. The disputed cases under various laws. Sir, across 77 assessment years, a total amount of INR 5,266 crore is in dispute. What is paid in protest is INR 769 crore and the total amount gross is INR 6,035 crore. Now this is 16.49 times our equity capital. Right. How do you deal with this? I would like to know this.
How many are in dispute outside India, first of all? The outside India cases are not mentioned there by the auditor. Secondly, the legal expenses incurred to fight or defend these cases, I would like to know during the year. In the profit and loss account on page 333. Last year we had one amount of exceptional item to the extent of INR 1,281 crores as provision towards legal claim as a loss. Now this year it is nil. How do you see this situation in the current year? In the first three months, what has happened? Can you tell me something about it? Sir, what feedbacks and feed-forwards have you received during the year and the previous year, which are being implemented for still better results?
My last two questions are how do you visualize the company could be after five years or 10 years from today with you or without you being at the helm of the company? Lastly, sir, somebody said that India, in India we are having only 5% of the turnover of TCS. Now, what are your plans to improve the turnover in India, or do you don't see opportunities in India for more than 5% or 6%? Thank you, sir, very much, and wish you all the best. I hope that I get answer for all my questions. Thank you very much.
Praful Chavda.
Hello? Sir, (Fl) , sir? Hello?
Yes, yes, please.
Sir, (Fl)
Yes, you are.
Thank you, sir. Sir, (Fl)
(Fl)
Thank you. Deepti Ranjan(Fl)
Welcome all. Myself Dr. Deepti Ranjan. First of all I congratulate chairman sir for Padma Bhushan award. I have two queries. First is TCS spending only INR 2,242 crore that is 1.2% of total revenue on research and development. If possible company can increase this amount then it will be benefit for the future of the company because research and development is the most important thing in current scenario. Second question as everyone told that current attrition rate at 17.4%. It is higher than quarter three attrition rate that is 15.3%. What measures TCS has taken to contain this? These are my two queries and thank you.
(Fl)
Hello.
Ma'am.
Respected Chairman and Board of Directors. First of all thank you for buying back of shares which effect is for next five years and sir BPL sponsor, BPSL sponsor first think of shareholders. What is the effect for next five years? Thanks for buyback of shares. Thank you.
Miss Vasudha Dhakde.
Hello.
Ma'am.
Yeah. Can you hear me sir?
I can hear you ma'am.
Okay thank you. Very good afternoon respected chairman sir, board of directors and my fellow shareholders. Myself Vasudha from Thane. I would like to congrats our company secretary for sending me the soft copy of the report well in advance which itself is clear and transparent. Most of the question was asked by previous shareholders. I will not take your time. With this I support all the resolution. Thank you very much.
Ma'am।
Miss Ashalata Maheshwari hasn't logged in. Neither have the next three speakers. We could move on to number 34, Mr. Bharat M. Shah.
Bharat M Shah.
Mr. Bharat M Shah seems to be experiencing some technical connectivity problems. Miss Bharti Saraf is not available.
Am I audible, sir?
Yes you are.
(Fl
(Fl)
(Fl) Thank you.
Preetam Kaur Dung.
Preetam Kaur Dung has not logged in. We could move on to our next speaker.
(Fl)
Hello. Moderator, please allow me to connect from the other device.
You have logged on two devices.
Hello.
Yes.
Yes. Can I go ahead reading my note?
Please.
Yeah. Thank you. Good evening, Chair, Directors, co-shareholders. Thank you for allowing me to connect and interact with you. While you may have gotten tired by now listening to us shareholders, I will keep very precise and I request for your little more attention while I read my note. I will request the company secretary to provide me the video copy of my interaction, including the answers given by the Chairman on my concern. Now, to begin with, I am very happy to note down yet another year of all-around growth that is increase in top-line revenue, bottom-line profits, margins, dividend payouts. All credit to our leadership team for working untiringly and building value for our nation and everyone associated with the company.
I am immensely happy to read a note printed in The Economic Times in April this year that TCS would become the largest IT company in the world. This note was echoed by our CEO, Shri Rajesh Gopinathan. By God's grace, I would like to see that this day in my life. Now everything is going well except that I am pained by one forced decision upon us shareholders year on year. Herein, I am referring to the buyback offers which are against the interest of the significant part of our shareholders, almost more than 20 lakh shareholders. After four buybacks in FY 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, the company has doled out close to INR 75,000 crore of profits.
If you are not aware that who has benefited to get these buyback bounty, then note that it is not the genuine long time shareholders who valued the company and remained shareholders since 2004 and in fact added the shares buying out from the market. Who are the beneficiaries? They are those extra smart next generation fly by night small shareholders who swiftly buy shares upon your announcement of buyback and surrender their holdings in the buyback offers, made full profits and then perhaps rebuy the shares. Who are the losers? Genuine long time shareholders like me and my family members. Lakhs of others also, the companies such as Tata Sons, Tata Motors, to name a few. Even Mr. Ratan Tata.
All you directors, all the employees having ESOPs, having approximately 1,300 shares, personally, I have lost INR 2.5 lakh by way of not participating in the buyback. I have worked this figure on the basis of 75,000 crore bounty distributed over 375 crore capital, working out to INR 200 dividend. Imagine the impact of dividend loss to the shareholders who have more shares than me. Sir, I am unsure if Mr. Ratan Tata has been apprised that the company is offering a loot by way of buyback and not by way of dividend which would have gone to the genuine shareholders.
Whosoever has taken a decision or a call in the company to offer this buyback, I will call and request him to pay me INR 2.5 lakhs. Further, I want to propose a resolution to never offer a buyback in shares in future. In any case, our company equity shares is too small at 366 crore and there is in fact scope of multi-fold increase in our equity capital. All our peer group companies like Infosys, Wipro, HCL, even overseas tech companies like Microsoft have 10-100x of our equity size. Further, I don't see how much 3 crore or four crore equity reduction by way of buyback and simultaneously increase in equity by way of ESOP will go together.
More so if we become the largest IT company, then this puny capital is not enough. I finish my concern here and request your honest reply on this. Thank you very much.
Liju Mathai, Kimmonil. We move on to our next speaker.
Hello. Hello sir, (Fl) sir?
Yes, yes.
(Fl)
(Fl) company research and All the best. Thank you sir.
Thank you. Mr. Ashok Mallya.
Namaste, sir. I am Mr. Ashok Mallya from Udupi. Company secretary by profession. My DP ID is IN303028. Congratulations to the chairman for Padma Bhushan, sir, and team TCS for extraordinary performance and you have distributed INR 38,000 crore to the shareholder through buyback and dividend. My question is, what are the plans to handle e-waste in TCS due to increase in same compared to previous year? Thank you, sir. Take care. Jai Hind.
Another question. Mr. Yusuf Rangwala. Sir. Rangwala. Speak. We can see you. You are not audible. Can you check your-
Good morning. Good evening, sir. My name is Mr. Yusuf Rangwala. I came from Mumbai. Sir, (Fl)
(Fl)
(Fl)
Thank you sir. Mr. Neeraj Chudgar.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity. I hope I am audible.
Yes, you are.
Thank you. Respected Chairman N. Chandrasekaran Ji, CEO and Managing Director Rajesh Gopinathan, esteemed members of the board and my fellow shareholders. Good evening to you all. I'm Neeraj Chudgar. I'm joining this AGM from my hometown, Surat, Gujarat. I would like to first congratulate our chairman, N. Chandrasekaran Ji, for receiving the third highest civilian award in India, Padma Bhushan. I would also like to congratulate our CEO and Managing Director, Rajesh Gopinathan, for achieving $25 billion revenue in FY 2022. I would also like to congratulate the entire board for doing a buyback of INR 18,000 crore and also giving a generous dividend of INR 43 per share. Now, I'm actually an ex-employee of TCS, and I started my professional journey in TCS in 1999.
I would say that I'm a proud ex-employee of TCS. I also started my investment journey in 2007 by buying the TCS share, and I'm still a shareholder of TCS after 15 years, and I'm very proud shareholder of TCS as well. Now, with the compliments out of the way, I would like to raise three important points. My first point is my concern on the ESG. Just give me a moment. Let me read it from my note. Thank you. I'd like to raise a concern on the governance deficit based on my horrible experience with TCS corporate support retirement settlement team. I transferred my PF from TCS to another company on 7 November 2020.
While my EPF was transferred successfully, but unfortunately my EPS was not transferred. Ideally, it should have been transferred together. When I wanted the access to the fund during COVID-19, I discovered this issue, and I immediately raised it to TCS retirement team on the alumni portal on 28th November 2020, but which is still pending even after whopping 558 days or one and a half years. Actually, I believe that TCS is a best in class IT services company and a trusted advisor for a lot of clients for enriching customer and employee experience, so this level of service from TCS is totally unexpected.
Actually, after I raised this question when I registered for this AGM, I would like to say that TCS support team has reached out to me, and I feel that this issue should be resolved quickly. What I would like to highlight to the management is that employee or alumni should not face this kind of issue, and we should have well-defined service level agreement, just like what we have for the client projects. Same should be applicable for employee-
I have, Mr. Neeraj Chudgar, I have the issue on hand. I will explain to you when I give answer.
Yes. Thank you.
on what is being done on this.
I want to ask the second question.
We can take that up in my answer.
Yeah.
Do you have any other issues you want to highlight?
I'll move on to the two other questions. My second question is on margin for the other segment. If I see your annual report, the other segment, which includes energy resources and utility, public sector and products and platform areas, has a margin of just 20.6%. This is on page number 119 in the annual report. This is much lower compared to the margin of rest of the operating segment, where BFSI's margin is at 26.9%, CMI's margin is at 29.9%, Retail at 27.8%, Manufacturing is at 13.1%, and LS&H is at 30%.
What this lower margin in the other segment basically is driving down our overall margin of the company, which was at 25.3% in FY 2022. What I would like to know from the management is how management is planning to improve the margin in this others segment, particularly in products and platform area, which should ideally have substantially higher margin due to its nonlinear revenue model. This will also help the company to achieve its aspirational margin band of 26%-28%. Moving on to my next question, that is about strengthening the footprint of TCS in APAC and Middle East region.
As per the data provided in the notes forming the part of consolidated financial statements on page number 304 in the annual report, TCS basically has established very strong footprint in North America with the revenue contribution of 50.5%, UK with a revenue contribution of 15.85%, and Continental Europe with a revenue contribution of 16.03%. But there is a lot of headroom for growth in other geographical area like Latin America, which is just contributing 1.67% of revenue, Middle East and Africa, which is contributing just 9.99% of revenue, and India, which is contributing 5.11% of revenue.
In the annual report, I saw that TCS aspire to achieve $50 billion revenue in next few years. I would like to know from the management what is the strategy for establishing a very strong footprint in Middle East and Asia Pacific region as well as India region, because these are the growth engine of the world. If we can actually establish our strong footprint in this region, just like what we have done in US, UK and Continental Europe, then I think it would be easier for us to achieve our revenue target in next few years. Thanks a lot for giving me the opportunity to ask question, and I support all the resolutions in this AGM, and I wish the management all the best for the future. Thank you.
Thank you. Pooja Agarwal.
Yes, sir. Sir, I am a proud shareholder of my company and also a member of Millennium Mams. Sir, I would like to know one thing. Our company has everything. It has a brand value. It has an amazing management. It is cash rich. Sir, how do I see my company now with India Plus opportunity change its place in the world by 2025? May I say in other ways that is it okay to say that I can see my company at the top in the world by 2025?
Suresh Chand Jain.
Nor has Shriyansh Gupta.
Shriyansh Gupta.
No, Shriyansh Gupta has not logged in either.
I understand there are couple of more shareholders.
We do have two speaker shareholders who experienced some connectivity issues. With your permission, Mr. Chairman, could we invite them once again to speak? Atanu Saha.
Hello. Hello.
Yes, yes, Mr. Atanu Saha.
Ha ha ha. Good evening. Good evening, sir. I am Atanu Saha from Kolkata, sir, a small minor shareholder and respected chairman and company secretary and CFO and board of directors and all shareholders and to all personalities who are directly and indirectly helping this organization, the virtual mode swiftly. Sir, it's a warm gratitude to our N. Chandrasekaran ji that his birthday is over on June 22, but it's warm still today and it's future every day and every time. Sir, it's a beautiful signature. We are the TCS and building on belief. Sir, every business born out from belief. Anyhow, sir, my first question is that do you have any plan to split our company share price for minority shareholders? My second question is do you emphasize at least plan to organize virtual mode and physical meeting simultaneously.
This alarming COVID is still alarming, sir. How our beloved personalities maintain their precautionary scheme and how our beloved company maintain its to do so. Thank you. Have a good day. Thank you.
Our second speaker shareholder who had technical problems was Mr. Bharat M. Shah.
Hello.
Please speak, sir.
Hello, N. Chandrasekaran sir.
Ha.
(Fl)
(Fl)
(Fl).
(Fl)
(Fl)
Thank you.
Sir, we do have one more speaker who is logged in now. Mr. H.S. Patel, serial number 8. Patel.
Hello.
Yes, ma'am.
Good evening, sir. Respected Chairman, our eminent Board of Directors. I'm Mrs. Patel over here. Thank you very much for giving me an opportunity to speak. I thought because my connection was not possible, so I've been thrown out a lot. But luckily, I've given a chance. I thank you. First, I would like to thank our Mr. Gaitonde, sir, and Mr. Seksaria, sir, for sending me the annual report. I have been sent an abridged report. I do not know why I have been sent an abridged report. Even almost five, six days in advance, they have sent me the report, but it's an abridged report. Why, Mr. Gaitonde?
You are a new company secretary, but I'm right from the inception of the TCS shares. I expected to have the whole report. Please don't treat us like that, Mr. Gaitonde. Anyway, I cannot speak much because it is not possible to go through that report. I have full faith in our Mr. Gopinathan, who has sailed this company to a very powerful extent. It's the one of the best companies or the best companies in the Tata Group. Under your leadership, Mr. Chandrasekaran, and under the hard work and diligence of Mr. Gopinathan and all other untold and unclaimed hardworking people of TCS, we are receiving very good value for our shares.
You have given us a dividend. You have given us buyback of shares at a very good amount. You have given us good bonus. What more we can expect from you, Mr. Chandrasekaran, under your leadership? We are very happy. May you live and continue with the company for a very long time, and may we shareholders prosper. I have only a few things to say. Sir, just a humble request. There is a very high and multiple increase in our equity capital. There's a very high cash flow. Our profit level has gone up very high. It's an all-time high. Order book also we have, all-time high order book we have. In spite of all this, why is it so that we have received this time only INR 22 dividend?
Very less dividend we have received. I feel in it that way. I do not know why. Company could have almost given us the double amount. Anyway, I leave it to the management. My second question, I just would like to know what is TCS iON certificate? What is TCS iON certification? I would like to know that. Sir, I understand the attrition rate is going very, very high. Why are the employees not satisfied even though the company is at this highest level? If you can throw some light, sir. I congratulate the company, all its employees who have done very hard work. Of course, now again, COVID, I hope it doesn't increase much. We are safe and sound, all the employees, my family, and everybody in the Tata Group.
I congratulate the company for getting good awards and applause. TCS CodeVita has won the Guinness World Record. I congratulate each and every employee for their hard work for this. It's the most valuable brand in IT industry. Above all, Mr. N. Chandrasekaran, I salute you for the Padma Bhushan that you have won. It is a crowning glory in the Tata Group. May you get much more such awards in your lifetime. For the Tata Group also, may the Tata Group. I also congratulate our RNT, Mr. Ratan Tata, for getting our Air India back in the hands of Tata Group. It's very nice achievement, Sir Ratan Tata.
If J.R.D. Tata would have been there, he would have been very happy because it was his child which was snatched away from him. He felt it very bad. The pain that he had undergone at that time, nobody may realize that. Today, RNT, we are very proud of you for getting back this Air India back in your hands, back in the hands of Tata Group. I congratulate each and everyone for that. Sir, only one humble request. The print, the words printed in your annual report, of course minus the annual report, but the words printed are very, very light. Unable to read them. Of course, the printer must be taking his cream from the TCS group, and yet he's giving such horrible printout.
Nobody bothered to check this before sending out the annual report. It's very surprising. Very, very light. Not able to read it clearly. If it was little dark print, it would have been better. The revenue growth and everything is on very high increase. Everything is very good in the company. I once again congratulate all the board of directors, all the employees who have worked very hard. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mr. Keki M. Mistry. We remember you in this among the board of directors. I also love to say high value for Miss Madam Aarthi Subramaniam and our Mr. Rajesh Gopinathan, who has taken this TCS ship to the very, very high level. Wish you all good luck and all the very best.
Thank you so much.
Thank you. With that, we come to the end of the shareholders' commentary. Let me start responding to all the questions and queries raised. First, Mr. Arunkumar Boppana. I think the 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. I'm glad that the government is engaged and developing a participative approach to develop the Digital Act, which is a very important thing, especially there are new issues like the privacy and other aspects that will come into this act.
In terms of the opportunity for whether it is 50 companies with INR 5,000 crore or a huge export revenue, I think there is an enormous opportunity because as I mentioned in my opening remark, every industry will become AI and data-based companies. The extent of investment that will go into technology globally is so high. While I don't want to make specific commentary about the deadline and so on and so forth, what has been mentioned in your query, I think the opportunity is very high and the exports revenue will continue to grow significantly and there will be many companies which will cross INR 5,000 crore of revenue.
In terms of the anxiety, I think the company has throughout the couple of years of pandemic engaged in multiple formats and multiple forums with the employee base to keep them engaged. There are a number of programs the HR in TCS has rolled out to ensure that people are connected, not only in terms of doing the work, but also in terms of having a platform to receive advice regarding mental health or any other issues, but also some social evenings through a digital media. The company will continue to find innovative ways to engage with the workforce. You talked about the airport security. I think there are lots of digital solutions possible. The company will continue to work with the government and look for opportunities to participate and develop some very, very mission-critical, nationally important projects.
We will see that opportunity as very prestigious and engage with the government and the public sector. In terms of cybercrimes, I think it's, you know, it's always the second side of anything that is positive. You did analogy of IT and the gold. I think, you know, it's always the case when there is a lot of good, there is also an opportunity for people to misuse. But the company has developed a huge array of offerings in cybercrime area to be able to monitor and provide customers and governments we engage with with the right alerts and solutions and so on and so forth. You talked about war in Ukraine. I don't know what the solution is to avoid wars, so I can't really comment on that.
Many people asked a couple of questions and couple of comments. I just want to answer it upfront. People talked about the TCS's revenue from the India market to be 5%, will it increase? See, TCS has a geographical distribution, and in the global arena, the IT spend varies across markets. TCS's proportion of revenues from different markets is in proportion to the total IT budget. The IT budget, for example, in the U.S., is significantly larger compared to India. It's not possible to substantially increase TCS revenue from India as a percentage of its overall pool. While we'll continue to participate in government projects and also in building corporate relationships, the number to move from 5% to 6% or 7%, it's a significant shift.
I don't see this number going to double digit for a long period to come. Second point is that people raised about why not a physical board meeting, a physical AGM and not only a virtual. See, we had to take a call in terms of a virtual board, virtual AGM or a physical AGM at least 2-3 months in advance. At that time, there was still an uncertainty about whether physical meeting will be possible, what will be the COVID. Somebody also referred to the IPL. Even in the IPL, the initial days of the IPL was with very few people allowed in the stadiums. Over a period of time, based on the situation when it developed, they opened it up. One had no certainty.
AGM being a very important event and also an event which is statutorily required, we didn't want to risk any uncertainty. That is why we have gone in for a virtual AGM. Like many of you, I also equally want to have a physical AGM and want to have the opportunity to meet with the shareholders face to face. I hope we can do that next year. Mr. Gautam Tiwari, you talked about how many shares or dividend that were transferred to IEPF. Unclaimed dividend of INR 628.38 lakhs, that is, INR 6 crores 28 lakhs and 25,561 shares were transferred to IEPF during the year 2021-22. It has already been reported in the annual report. You talked about the temporary workers versus permanent workers.
7.5% of the workforce is approximately temporary workers. You asked about the attrition. As I already made in my opening remark, company wants to contain the attrition. Many people ask this question again, but you know during the pandemic time, the attrition level went very low. To some extent, it is some of the pent-up attrition and people who leave look for other companies, either because they want to shift a city or because they want to have a different job as a change. So it can be many reasons. So I can't really explain to you as a generic reason. But the company does a very detailed analysis through exit interview process and then is focused on retaining people based on their needs and concerns.
Attrition management is a key priority for the company, and we will continue to do employee engagement initiatives. You also asked about how many handicapped people are working in the company. The company has 921 employees with disabilities, and we are always looking to see how we can engage with people who are differentially abled and how we can give them more opportunities. We will continue to increase this percentage. In terms of gender ratio, 64.4% of the employees are male and 35.6% are female. Total female count is 211,028 employees. On Ukraine, Russia, the company has no presence in those markets, and we do not have an impact. Mr. Hiranand Kotwani, you asked about the related party transactions.
Total between the company and Tata Sons and its associates, there is a total transactions of INR 1,551.
crores.
INR crores is the total value of these transactions. Mostly these transactions are related to the company providing either IT services or the company engaging with the group companies to be able to leverage the joint procurement volume so that the procurement can be done for common needs between TCS and other companies. This is the nature of the transactions. You asked about special economic zones. The special economic zone reinvestment reserve is created out of the profits of eligible SEZ units to avail tax exemptions as provided in the Income Tax Act. The amount so credited will be transferred to retained earnings when we invest in plant and machinery for equivalent value. You asked about the sexual harassment case.
During the year, there were 36 sexual harassment complaints which were received globally, and all of them have been resolved after a due process review. Each case is investigated as per the company policy as well as the local regulatory requirements in that respective geography. Wherever the case is proven, disciplinary action has been taken, and there has been no such case in the courts anywhere. You talked about what type of commission is given. I think the commission given to the board of directors is as per the company policy and as within the laws. I cannot stress you the value that the independent directors bring to the company. It is a significant value.
Their guidance, their experience, knowledge that they bring on the strategy of the company, as well as many strategic issues that we discuss in the board is invaluable, and we'll never be able to compensate them enough. It is very much in line with the policy. You talked about auditor and the external auditor fees. Auditor fees paid to statutory auditors on a consolidated basis is INR 9.1 crore in FY 2022. Audit is always carried out in India as well as in respective locations as per the law of the land, because TCS is a global company and operates in more than 50 different jurisdictions. We need to respect the laws of the land and the audit process takes into account that.
Miss Alka Karnani, you asked about whether with the inflation, the spend on the tech sector will be curtailed, and we don't see that. The digital transformation is a reality, and it is getting accelerated. We see the spend completely on track. Attrition rate you mentioned, I already answered that question. Company will try to do the employee engagement and be sensible in the way we design our policies very proactively, so that we continue to remain the best employer as well as friendly to our employees. Manoj Kumar Gupta, thank you for all your positive comments. I already talked about the Russia and Ukraine. You talked about Northeast. While I can't specifically comment whether TCS will create a campus, Northeast is an important area where the group wants to engage.
Tata Group as a whole is looking at opportunities for expanding our presence in terms of investments and job creation and also social work in the Northeast. Thank you, Radha Saraf. You expressed an interest to visit Bombay House. You are most welcome. Please get in touch with my office. We'll be happy to host you. Company you talked about should have the watches. The company already has, in spite of all the dividends and buyback, a cash in hand of INR 56,000 crore. Any dividend that we pay out or a buyback we do is in line with the company's payout policy to shareholders of 80%-100% of the free cash flow.
We definitely take into account the cash needs of the company and whether needs in terms of investment in R&D, investment in capital expenditure or investment in acquisition will be the topmost priority. After that, we want to reward the shareholders. You asked about whether there will be a efficiency because of the work from home. No, there are equivalent expenditures. In other means, which the company is engaging with the employees. Also now we'll be going into a hybrid mode. While it is my personal preference to encourage employees to come back to work, and I would like to see a significant number of employees back in the office, the company is already working with the employees.
While there will be hybrid, we expect most employees to come back and return to the offices. In the new paradigm, the cost structure will have to be suitably adjusted. Kaushik Chahukar, you have expressed an interest to work with the company. Definitely, I'll request the company to speak with you. In case if there is an opportunity, TCS will engage. Otherwise, I will request the Tata Sons HR to connect with you and see how your skills can be used within the group. Mr. S.P. Vasani , thank you for your comment. I already explained why we couldn't do a physical shareholder meeting. The PM CARES Fund was instituted at the time of the COVID. We believe it is a national cause driven by the Prime Minister.
We have made a contribution which we think is the right thing to do to support the nation at the time of the pandemic and other crisis we have faced. You asked about when the revenue of INR 3 lakh crore will be achieved. We don't give guidance, but the company has been growing double-digit every year, so you can make your extrapolations. Many people talked about the share transfer agent and how the group should get involved. I have taken all those points, and I'll mention it to the group company secretarial department to engage with our share transfer agent to address all the shareholder issues and see how we can be more efficient and you can be helped. Santosh Kumar Saraf, thank you for your comments.
Hema Gupta, I already answered your question about the Indian revenue of TCS from the India market. In terms of the DNA and cognitive disruption, the company is engaged with many of the biotech companies and other companies to participate in the disruption. Also the company's R&D is working on many such areas, and hopefully we will build intellectual property in the coming years to be able to make a big impact in this area. Tamal Majumdar, you raised a number of issues. The first one being why the retail CPG and media has grown faster than some of the other areas like life sciences and healthcare. The life sciences and healthcare has been continuously steadily doing well even during the pandemic, whereas some of the other industries took a hit during the pandemic.
What you see in the near term, last few quarters, is the effect of the slowdown that happened to some of the industries and which have bounced back. Otherwise, I want to assure you that the life sciences and healthcare industry is doing incredibly well in TCS. You talked about the $77.74 due to global fuel costs and other aspects, and wanted me to make a comment on rupee dollar. It will be very difficult to say where the rupee will be.
Personally, I believe, while the global inflationary trend has its impact on in many such areas, and also the geopolitical environment has many such headwinds, the Indian market is extremely well-placed for growth, and the inflation in India will be lower than the Western countries. Also, with the regulators in India continuing to monitor this space, I'm hoping that this will be very range-bound. In terms of the operating margin, all I can say is that the company continues to maintain its operating margin guidance. I don't wanna say guidance, but the belief that it will operate between 26%-28%, that is our stated goal.
The number of uncertainties over the last two years that we have had to handle continues to see some volatility, but our stated goal is to get back into 26%-28% of the margin. The accounts receivable, DSO days came down by three days. You have seen that in the free cash flow conversion, which is almost at an all-time high of 104% of the profits. I think while the company wants to continue to drive the DSO, I think at 64 days, it is at least from the company's point of view, it is one of the best that we have seen in the last several years. We'll continue to monitor that.
You asked about the loan of INR 13,665 crores and the INR 5,384 crores. See, this is not a loan, this is a loan against the deposit that we have. The company's money deposited in one of the banks, which is not a Tata Group entity. This has been. This is one of the banks in India, which is safe and sound and gives us the best returns. On the provision that has been made on the case, I think we believe that what has been made as a provision is adequate, and we don't expect any change to that. I think I've pretty much answered your question. Actually, you asked about the foundation is spending only 48% of the total money for the year.
See, TCS has a large corpus because of the profits that we have for the CSR. We enter into long-term projects. While we commit X amount of crores, maybe 50, 60, 80, 100 crores for an initiative, it is not possible to be able to spend all that money in the same year. We allocate that money towards that cause. The Ministry of Corporate Affairs allows us to spend this money over a period of five years. While the money is transferred to the TCS Foundation, and these monies are allocated to certain projects which have been committed by the company. There is no underspending from the company point of view. It's just that the nature of the projects takes multi years to execute.
Thank you for your noting on the BSE website about R.C. Subramaniam. We'll certainly look into it and take it up with BSE. On the bonus shares, we note your comment. On the Diligenta profits, I think, you know, some of these subsidiaries will have their own ups and downs, but the business model in terms of the platforms is very, very strong and the company is leveraging the intellectual property to drive some of these platform-based deals which are very large and transformative, and positions the company as a partner of transformation in making transition to the next decade for our customers. Many people also asked about the others being lower margin compared to some of the other sectors.
See, the segmental reporting must be seen in the right context. The company continues to build new capabilities and new verticals. The reason some verticals are bucketed under others is because they have still not achieved the scale. When we are building those verticals, definitely they will operate at slightly lower margin, but they are strategic in nature. That's extremely important for the company to get into those verticals, those markets, and also those kind of projects. As they mature and gain scale, the margins will improve. Mr. Sailesh Mahadevia, thank you for your comments regarding the Chhatrapati Sangrahalaya. We have committed about INR 25 crore for that project. You talked about the global growth of 2.8%.
Yes, that will have a macro impact across the board, but we still, based on the discussions with our clients and the pipeline we see and the order book that we are currently seeing in terms of April and May this year, we continue to believe that the technology spends will be continued. The EVA for the fiscal 2022 is INR 30,948 crore. The rate of interest for the calculation of EVA is 15.33%. The ESG rating we have got from EcoVadis, awarded gold rating for the last eight years. Sustainalytics, they have given us an ESG risk rating of 14.4, which translates to low risk. We are recognized as a top industry-rated company, as well as a top regional rated company.
We are listed in the top 10 constituents in the MSCI Index, India Leaders Index, and our MSCI ESG rating is AA. We also are the top 10 constituent in the FTSE4Good Emerging Index rating. On multiple ratings, the company is doing extremely well. You asked about attrition of the women. I think the attrition of women and men are more or less the same, around the 17% mark. Thank you. Humayun Purdehi, your comment about the trans region, I've already addressed. Ukraine and attrition rate, all of that we have addressed. Mr. Dharav Jamadar, you asked about Metaverse.
The company is engaged with our clients, already has developed some solutions which have been deployed with a media company, and we will continue to watch this space, and it's going to be a very big opportunity, as you rightly said, but these opportunities take time to mature. Lekha Shah, you asked about more about the COVID pandemic and whether the employees have returned to work. Still many employees are working from home. This is a process the company is going through to establish the hybrid model with employees significantly returning back to work. Mr. Prakashini Shenoy, you also asked about the COVID-19 impact.
COVID-19 impact, all I can say is that you saw a couple of years ago, the revenues came down, the growth rates came down, but now it has picked up again. The company's tax rate, effective tax rate is somewhere around 25%.
25.6.
25.6%. There's no GST.
GST will be.
GST is restricted to a small percentage of revenue, which is primarily in the India services. The company predominantly has a global business, more than around 95%. Mr. Atanu Saha, I have taken note of your comment on physical meeting. I've addressed it. Bonus or share split and all those things, I have taken note. Mrs. Mascarenhas, I already answered your question regarding ESG rating and other questions you've raised. Mr. Mascarenhas, thank you for your comments. Dinesh Kotecha, I answered your question regarding physical meeting. You asked about Tejas Networks. Tejas Networks is a separate company invested directly by Tata Sons. This is in the business of building telecom networking, core base transmission equipments and telecom software to be able to run the network.
There is no plan to be integrating that with TCS. It's a separate business. Even though TCS will have a partnership in implementation of those as a system integrator in some of these areas, and wherever there is a TCS IP that can be leveraged in joint go-to-market, we will explore that. I already answered the question regarding attrition. You asked about fraud case. Where is that? There is no direct monetary impact for TCS. You asked about the revenue in constant currency, which I already answered. It's again over 15%. Actually, the company delivered more than 15%.
15%-16% both in dollar terms, constant currency terms, and also in rupee terms. It's been a year where the company has delivered strong growth in all currencies. On the tax disputes, yes, we continue to be very diligent about pursuing those. I can't tell you on what better way to handle it. You asked about legal claim. Company has ongoing legal proceedings, primarily with the Epic Systems. We had made a provision of INR 1,218 crore towards this legal claim in last year. Company will continue to pursue the legal options that is available to you. There is no update, further update. On how do I visualize the company in 5-10 years, I cannot predict in terms of specific number.
I don't want to say that. The company doesn't give forward-looking guidance, except that we already said we will become a $50 billion company. I see the potential to be very large. The company will not only do in the services space, it will do more intellectual property, more platform-based revenues, and it will partner with all the leading companies in all the transition that is taking place in terms of digital sustainability, in terms of supply chain, and also in the new talent model. All of these are big opportunities for the company. I expect the company's position to be extremely strong. Mr. Praful Chavda, you asked about employees. Our youth employment program supported placement of about 7,400 marginalized youth across companies in private and public sector.
We continue to see what we can do with the armed forces. There are programs that we run called goIT and also Ignite My Future to cover army personnel through our partnership with the army public schools. Direct employment, wherever possible, we definitely engage with them, not only in TCS, but also across the group. Deepti Ranjan, the company's investment in R&D is continuing to increase, and I would not like to measure it as a percentage of revenue. I can only assure you that the company does not hesitate to make any investment that is required for its future.
Company's future, the impact we can make in the businesses around the globe, and the innovation that we can bring, and the intellectual property we can create, all the advanced areas that we can build capabilities, comes as a top priority. Sometimes it will show as R&D, sometimes it will show as investment in training, sometimes it will show as investments that we are doing in creating platforms for taking to market, some of which we will completely be expensing out, so it may not show up as R&D investment. Sheetal Shankar Bansal, thank you for your comments. Mr. Vasudha Dhakde, thank you. Ms. Vasudha Dhakde, thank you for your comment. Mr. Bharat M. Shah, thank you for your comment. Mr. Manjit Singh, you talked a lot about CEO commission.
I just want to assure you that, the company rewards the management for what they bring to the table. It is, even if you benchmark it with, comparable companies, is still, lower than the benchmark. The company is a leading company. India's, and globally most respected IT services company. We have our rankings. The reward mechanism the company has put in place, is what we believe is the right mechanism. You asked about, class four workers. The company, I can tell you, has not retrenched anyone, has not cut salaries, has taken care of every employee at every level in the company during, not only COVID, always, but certainly during the COVID period.
We have been most considerate and will continue to be appreciative because we duly believe that every single employee in the company contributes to the company's growth. They all have a job to do, and they're all very passionate about the company. Every employee is passionate about the customers we serve. So we will continue to reward all our employees and keep a very cohesive unit. You talked about subsidiary losses. You know, as I've answered before, there are many markets in which the company operates. Some of them are subsidiaries in the onsite. They also drive work offshore, so the profitability for those engagements may be offshore driven, so there are a lot of specifics involved. Some markets we are making upfront investment. So it will be improper to start comparing every unit to the same benchmark.
Mr. Jasmeet Singh, you talked about how a buyback is not beneficial. I think buyback and dividend is evaluated by the board every year. Buyback is tax efficient and even if you give dividend, new shareholders can buy the shares and then to be able to receive the dividend, and post dividend they can sell. It's very difficult for us to control. We go by the law. We try to do what is good for the shareholders and all long-term shareholders, like you and me and like you and Tata Sons and other companies, have to accept both forms so that we try to be most efficient in our reward to the shareholders. Mr. Dinesh Bhatia, thank you for your comments and. You asked about goodwill.
The purchase consideration paid in excess of the fair value of net assets acquired is recognized as goodwill and disclosed in the balance sheet. The decrease in goodwill as compared to the last year is an account of the exchange difference. It's just the exchange difference. There is no other change. Mr. Ashok Mallya, you talk about e-waste. We recognize e-waste as a critical issue that we will develop as the world adopts more and more digital devices and digital media. It's a long-term issue which we all have to face. This is something that the group is looking at. From the company point of view, the company disposes of the e-waste in a very responsible manner by partnering with the government-authorized recycling companies. Mr. Yusuf Rangwala, you are most...
I am also eager to meet with you whenever there is a next opportunity. It will be my pleasure to meet with you. Mr. Neeraj Chudgar, thank you for your message. You talked about the issue you have in pension. The issue is that after leaving TCS, you already made three different jobs. You went to Hexaware. When we followed up with the regional office, we hear that the money has been transferred to Hexaware. Now you are with, after IBM, with Deloitte. The company is willing to work with you to see what can be done. I understand the company is already in touch with you. If you come through the portal and engage with the company will do all it.
All is needed to work with the authorities so that the amount can be transferred to your current employer. I already answered your comment on other segments and the other markets. As I said, while the company will continue to grow, the mix of the revenues from the different markets will always be in proportion to the spend in those markets. Pooja Agarwal, thank you for your questions on India Plus opportunity. Yes, it is an India Plus opportunity, and it will create new businesses and the company will partner with all the players to be able to participate in this opportunity. Ms. Patel, I just want to tell you made a comment on the dividend, we could have given more.
I think the company is the best rewarding company in India, and it's a global benchmark. Even this year, we have transferred 102% of the free cash flow generated during the year to the shareholders. ION is our platform for education services, and that's what is referred to as ION certification. I already answered your attrition rate question, and I take your comment on the annual report. Many people made comments on annual report, some on the light print, some on the need for the copies to be delivered to them. We'll certainly look at all those things while we will be compliant. We want to be as shareholder-friendly as possible.
I will definitely speak to the company secretary team to continue to see what else we can do to address any issues there may be. With those comments, I complete my answers to all the questions that have been raised. I would like to now authorize Pradeep Gaitonde, Company Secretary, to conduct the voting procedure and conclude the meeting. The e-voting facility will remain open for the next 15 minutes to enable members to cast their vote. The results would be announced within the time stipulated under the applicable laws, and the same would be intimated to the stock exchanges and uploaded on the website of the company as well as that of NSDL. I once again thank all the shareholders for attending the meeting today and offering their most valuable suggestions to make the company better.
We at the company remain committed to continue to progress TCS as the most iconic company, in the space in which it operates and continue to drive value to shareholders, employees, customers, and the society at large. I also want to take this opportunity to thank all our directors who continue to provide enormous guidance to this board and for taking the time, in spite of the various time zones and odd hours, to stay and participate in this meeting. With your consent, I, the members of the board, as well as the management, would like to leave the meeting. I request all of you to have a safe and healthy year ahead, and hopefully, we will have a physical meeting next year. Tank you all very much.