If all goes according to the script, a Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) employee who has served the company for over 30 years will get 46,840 TCS shares on September 28, 2004. Or, as per current value of the TCS share, a Rs 4.63 crore bonanza. Another employee with 30 years service with the company will be offered 37,480 shares valued at Rs 3.71 crore and yet another in same service bracket will be offered 14,990 shares valued at Rs 1.48 crore on September 28. 

All in all, TCS will have 29 crorepati, 424 millionaire and 541 lakhpati employees in its ranks on September 28, 2004, when it will announce the results of a ballot circulated among shareholders to seek their consent to an Employee Share Purchase Scheme (ESPS). The proposal to allot TCS shares under the scheme is now awaiting shareholder consent. The shareholders are expected to mail their consent so as to reach the company on or before September 27 and results of the postal ballot will be declared on September 28. 

The board of directors has already passed a special resolution earlier for allotment of 18,39,960 TCS shares of Re 1 paid-up each to 1,033 employees of the company and its subsidiaries. The shares will be allotted for a total consideration of Rs 18.40 lakh, which is almost at a 90 per cent discount to the current Rs 182.15 crore market value of these shares. The shares allotted under ESPS will be subject to a one-year lock-in from the date of allotment. 

The ESPS will be available to all employees who on August 9, 2004, were employees of the former TCS division of Tata Sons, Tata America International Corporation and TCS Asia Pacific Pte. Employees who had served the designated companies for 15 years or more and employees in the consultant-4 (C4) grade and above, having served between 5 to 15 years in the designated companies will become crorepatis. Accordingly the 29 employees who have served the company for over 15 years will be crorepatis soon. 

Those who have served the company for over five years will either be lakhpatis or millionaires. There are 424 employees who will get shares currently valued at over Rs one million (Rs 10,00,000) each. As many as 541 employees will get shares valued between Rs one lakh and Rs 10 lakh each. The remaining 39 employees will get share worth less than Rs one lakh each.