The Hindu Business Line : A quarter of IT workforce on national skills registry

New Delhi, Nov. 11 Nearly three years after the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) kicked off the initiative to build a credible database of existing and potential employees in IT and BPO sectors, just about 4.9 lakh professionals have been enrolled in the National Skills Registry (NSR). This works out to less than a quarter of the overall industry workforce.

“Such large initiatives take time to get operationalised and although the announcement on the NSR was made in early 2006, the initiative was launched around August 2006,” a source said.

When contacted, the Vice-President of Nasscom, Mr Raju Bhatnagar, said that the NSR momentum has been building up and the last year saw over 2.8 lakh registrations. The majority of these registrations (almost 65 per cent) happened in the BPO industry, with IT professionals accounting for the balance. As many as 80 companies have joined the initiative.

Banking included

Since January, the database has been expanded to include the banking sector, although the numbers there are still small. If the banking and the IT/BPO industry registrations are taken together, the overall sign-ups would stand at about 5.2 lakh.

Four banks have already come on board, Mr Bhatnagar said.

The NSR, which aims to address concerns over information security breach and fake resumes, was launched by Nasscom in January 2006 to filter out errant employees, reduce the risk of fraud-related activities and improve recruitment practices in the IT and BPO industry.

The NSR contains third-party verified personal, qualification-related and career information of IT/BPO professionals, and allows employers to view the verified resume, after an authorisation from the candidate.