After several years of displacing high-paying U.S. IT jobs through its low cost Indian outsourcing operations, Azim Premji’s Wipro Technologies is now throwing a few crumbs to the Americans.

Wipro Technologies said Monday that it’s setting up a new software development center in Atlanta that would hire 200 employees in the first year and grow to 500 in the third year of operation.

When you consider that Wipro has in excess of 72,000 employees with over 53,000 in IT services and products group alone, the Atlanta center is utterly insignificant and has to be seen in the context of Indian IT companies facing criticism from U.S. lawmakers for some of their practices.

Indian IT companies have come under fire in the U.S. because their outsourcing operations have led to thousands of American software programmers losing their jobs.

Indian companies like Wipro, Infosys and TCS also routinely bring thousands of employees on H-1B and L-1 visas to the U.S. to work on projects here.

In May, two U.S. senators Charles Grassley and Richard Durbin criticized The H-1B and L-1 programs for displacing qualified, American workers and sent letters to nine Indian IT companies including Wipro seeking details on their H-1B program.

Wipro said Atlanta was chosen because of the technical talent pool available in the area and the proximity to key universities.

Putting a positive spin on the new center, Wipro said the Atlanta facility was part of its strategy to build global delivery capabilities and significantly increase the company’s presence and base of local hires in the U.S.

Wipro Technologies President P.R Chandrasekar said:

The work we’re doing requires more and more knowledge of the customers’ businesses, and you want local people to do that.

Besides its large Indian operations, Wipro has development centers in Brazil, China, Mexico, Eastern and Western Europe and Canada.