The Hindu Business Line : Nasscom bids to bring academia, industry closer

(From left) Mr Vivek Harinarain, IT Secretary, Government of Tamil Nadu ; Mr Pankaj Agarwala, Joint Secretary, Dept of IT, Ministry of Communications and IT, Government of India; and Mr Kiran Karnik, President, Nasscom; at the inaugural session of Nasscom HR Summit 2004 in Chennai on Thursday. - - Bijoy Ghosh

Chennai , Sept. 2

THE National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) has launched its information technology workforce initiative to nurture "employable" resources for IT and IT-enabled service (ITES) sectors.

This initiative would bring the IT/ITES industry, the Government and academia together to formulate strategies to create and nurture human resources (HR) that provide intellectual capital as India moves towards a knowledge economy, said the Nasscom President, Mr Kiran Karnik. The IT workforce initiative was announced at the Nasscom's `HR Summit 2004: Changing role of HR and Challenges for IT Education' held here on Thursday. The initiative aims to work closely with the education sector in line with the IT industry's requirements. This would help to catalyse the interface between industry and academia. It would also explore alliances and programmes for specific initiatives with corporates, academic institutions and consultancy services, with special emphasis on what the IT industry can do, he said at the summit.

India's IT software and services industry encompasses about eight lakh employees. Over the next five years, this number is expected to triple to meet $50 billion in revenues from the present $13 billion. The HR challenges, including attracting, training, retaining and motivating employees, are critical success-determinants for this industry in the process of growth. Urgent steps are required to upgrade the physical and intellectual infrastructure of colleges, and also the syllabi and teaching materials/methods, he said.

There is a need to keep the academia and industry in sync with each other and build an in-depth understanding of the evolving function of HR as an essential partner in developing and executing organisation strategy, Mr Karnik said.

Mr Pankaj Agarwala, Joint Secretary, Union Ministry of Communication and IT , said that the Government looks at connectivity, capability, content and culture as key issues in the IT and ITES sectors. In connectivity, about 17 terabit of bandwidth is available. However, the current usage is 165 gibabits per second (GBPS). As part of a capability-building programme among students, the Government has identified nine institutions and 50 partnering colleges, he said.

According to Mr Vivek Harinarain, Tamil Nadu IT Secretary, various reports say that in the next five years, the shortage of "employable" IT workforce could be about one million, as against the requirement of 2-2.5 million.

Further, in the last couple of years, competing industries like automotive and manufacturing have also started aggressive recruitment, and are tapping the same resource pool as that of IT and ITES. HR is not about human resources, but is about human relationship, he said.

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