By Soudhriti Bhabani, IANS
Kolkata : The Indian IT industry is battling a severe shortage of skilled professionals that may slow its progress on the fast growth track. This is especially true in West Bengal, which has emerged as one of the fastest growing IT destinations.
“Every year, about 300,000 IT professionals pass out from different universities across India. But only 10 percent of them are employable by MNCs operating in India. This is a crucial problem the industry is now facing,” National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) vice-chairman and ZenSar Technologies CEO Ganesh Natarajan told IANS.
According to a Nasscom-McKinsey study conducted recently, India will face a severe shortage of 500,000 knowledge workers by 2010. The study also pointed out that there are alarming indications of a mismatch between academic performance and industry expectations.
Natarajan said Nasscom is tying-up with finishing schools and encouraging centre of excellence programmes to develop manpower quality across India.
The IT and ITes industry in West Bengal, which has emerged as a one-stop destination for IT giants like Cognizant, IBM, Wipro, and HCL, is also facing a similar crunch.
“To meet this challenge we, on behalf of the state government, will collaborate to set up finishing schools in the state. Presently, there are two finishing schools — in Kolkata and Durgapur. We are setting up a third in Siliguri shortly,” West Bengal principal secretary, IT department, Siddharth told IANS.
He said the government is also considering other places in West Bengal for setting up similar finishing schools to meet requirements of the IT sector.
West Bengal IT Minister Debesh Das has pointed out that the state would require 200,000 IT professionals by 2010. Presently there are about 44,000 IT professionals working in the sector in West Bengal.
The state has about four million sq ft of space occupied by IT and ITeS companies. It is expected that by 2010, they will occupy an additional 20 million sq ft.
The sector is growing at a rate of 71 percent in West Bengal against the national growth rate of 36 percent. The IT and ITeS sector in West Bengal generates about Rs.32 billion worth of business every year.
“Since West Bengal is poised for rapid growth in IT and ITeS in the next few years, our aim is to help bridge the gap between quality engineering graduates and the industry standard,” said Siddharth.