NEW DELHI: "The demand for professionals will be approximately 1.1 million people by 2008," says a report from the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom), India's IT industry umbrella group. "Supply of professionals, on the other hand, based on current trends will be 885,000 professionals by 2008," said the report made available to IANS. "This is based on the fact that the current labour pool in IT services is 360,000 and approximately 55,000 engineers and 20,000 graduates join the IT labour pool every year." India has managed to carve a niche for itself in the fiercely competitive global software and services market mainly because of its high quality and cost effective pool of skilled knowledge workers. From a base of 6,800 software and services workers in 1985-86, the number of professionals in the industry is estimated to increase to 650,000 by March 2003. Nasscom says the government and industry must join hands to attract a larger share of the 167,000 engineering students and 1.54 million graduates, who pass out from Indian institutions every year, into the IT industry workforce. "While this entire talent pool is available for the software and services industry in India, some training gaps remain," the report said. "While the engineering talent pool is equipped with almost all the skills necessary, introducing them to one or two software related courses across disciplines will greatly enhance their preparedness to work in the industry. "While there are approximately 50,000 engineers graduating from IT related courses, the other engineers will greatly benefit from exposure to software courses before they join the industry." According to Nasscom, science graduates must also be given intensive training in software development and universities should introduce software related courses in the curriculum in partnership with private training institutes. "The industry must also provide appropriate training opportunities for these students through internship." The lobby group say the government's "primary role" is to ensure that there was an adequate pipeline of English-speaking graduates who can then be trained by the private sector to cope with a potential shortfall of professionals. "The government can also play a role in providing training in functional areas. It can support the private sector's role by globalising curriculum across some key disciples."
Source: IANS