India struggles to plug gaps in burgeoning IT industry
Tuesday, 15 July 2008
Amy Yee, FT Syndication Service
NEW DELHI: India is weathering a political crisis that could trigger early general elections, but Nasscom, the country's IT industry lobby group, barely noticed. "We don't see any direct impact on our industry," said Nasscom sanguinely as it unveiled its latest results recently in New Delhi.
Nasscom had better things to focus on than the theatrics of domestic politics.
In spite of the economic slowdown in the US, India's showpiece industry - IT and services outsourcing - grew 28 per cent to become a $52bn business in the fiscal year ended March. It exported $40bn worth of services, mainly to the US, UK and Europe, and Nasscom forecast exports would swell to $50bn this fiscal year.
But far more pressing than politics are "two areas of great concern", said Som Mittal, president of Nasscom.
Even with India's vast population of 1.1bn, only a fraction of graduates are employable due to the country's uneven education system.
In order to hire enough people for an industry that added about 375,000 employees last year, companies such as Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro have to take on the job themselves.
"It's a huge burden on industry to train people," said Mr Mittal, who nevertheless noted that education and skills building should be a permanent initiative.
The IT industry must also focus on expanding beyond India's major cities - such as Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore - to smaller "tier two and three" cities and towns.
The hope is to escape the soaring costs of big Indian cities as well as tap into new labour markets. Moving to the sticks might help the industry tame two related problems - wage inflation and attrition - even at the expense of the social life of a young IT employee.
Meanwhile, another report of the author says: The Samajwadi party, the north Indian political grouping that appears poised to save India's ruling coalition from collapse, has called on the government to impose taxes on big oil companies.
Amar Singh, leader of the Samajwadi Party (SP), said that calling for a tax on windfall profits of oil companies echoed what other countries had proposed to soften the blow of soaring global oil prices.
A tax on windfall profits of oil exploration companies and refiners would hurt Indian companies such as Reliance Industries, Essar, Cairn and others while theoretically helping the Indian government support a ballooning fuel subsidy projected at about $60bn
NEW DELHI: India is weathering a political crisis that could trigger early general elections, but Nasscom, the country's IT industry lobby group, barely noticed. "We don't see any direct impact on our industry," said Nasscom sanguinely as it unveiled its latest results recently in New Delhi.
Nasscom had better things to focus on than the theatrics of domestic politics.
In spite of the economic slowdown in the US, India's showpiece industry - IT and services outsourcing - grew 28 per cent to become a $52bn business in the fiscal year ended March. It exported $40bn worth of services, mainly to the US, UK and Europe, and Nasscom forecast exports would swell to $50bn this fiscal year.
But far more pressing than politics are "two areas of great concern", said Som Mittal, president of Nasscom.
Even with India's vast population of 1.1bn, only a fraction of graduates are employable due to the country's uneven education system.
In order to hire enough people for an industry that added about 375,000 employees last year, companies such as Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro have to take on the job themselves.
"It's a huge burden on industry to train people," said Mr Mittal, who nevertheless noted that education and skills building should be a permanent initiative.
The IT industry must also focus on expanding beyond India's major cities - such as Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore - to smaller "tier two and three" cities and towns.
The hope is to escape the soaring costs of big Indian cities as well as tap into new labour markets. Moving to the sticks might help the industry tame two related problems - wage inflation and attrition - even at the expense of the social life of a young IT employee.
Meanwhile, another report of the author says: The Samajwadi party, the north Indian political grouping that appears poised to save India's ruling coalition from collapse, has called on the government to impose taxes on big oil companies.
Amar Singh, leader of the Samajwadi Party (SP), said that calling for a tax on windfall profits of oil companies echoed what other countries had proposed to soften the blow of soaring global oil prices.
A tax on windfall profits of oil exploration companies and refiners would hurt Indian companies such as Reliance Industries, Essar, Cairn and others while theoretically helping the Indian government support a ballooning fuel subsidy projected at about $60bn