The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : IT industry growth not hit: Minister

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Aug 01, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

IT industry growth not hit: Minister

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, JULY 31. The Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Dayanidhi Maran, on Saturday said the country's IT, software and services industry would capture 6 per cent of the global market by 2008.

Speaking at the third convocation of the Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Hyderabad, Mr. Maran said the Nasscom McKinsey Report had stated that despite recent slowdown in the IT Services and IT Enabled Services (ITES), the industry would meet the long term export potential of $57-65 billions by 2008.

The third convocation of IIIT saw 176 students getting their degrees. The IIIT Director, Rajeev Sangal, said the placement record was 100 per cent for B. Tech students with an average annual salary of Rs. 2.92 lakhs. The highest was Rs. 5.21 lakhs. Adobe, Blue Star Infotech, Convergys, GAIL, GE-IBC, IBM, Infosys, Oracle, Quark, Satyam, Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro are among the main recruiters.

Medals for merit

The Chief Minister presented the IIIT Gold Medal for outstanding academic performance to Krishna Pratap Reddy and Banyan Award for technological support activities to P. Srilakshmi and P. Vandana.

Mr. Maran said the IT industry that accounted for 2. 64 per cent of the country's Gross Domestic Product this year would attain seven per cent by 2008. Software exports, now at 21.3 per cent of total exports, would go up to 35 per cent in four years.

In terms of manpower requirement, he said the Task Force on Meeting the Human Resource Challenge for IT and ITES had estimated that India would need around 9.70 lakh IT professionals for IT export services and 27 lakh for ITES by 2012. The manpower needed for domestic and captive IT services would be an additional five lakhs by 2008-09 and ten lakhs by 2012. So, the Department of Information Technology (DIT) was promoting IT-based education, he said.

CM keen on IT

The Chief Minister, Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy said, the Government was keen on supporting the IT industry. "We would like the industry to grow not only in Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam but in Vijayawada, Tirupati, Warangal and Kurnool," he added. The Government had already given land, money and other facilities to set up Software Technology Park satellite earth stations in Vijayawada, Tirupati and Warangal, he said .He said there was also a plan to create rural eSeva centres in 6,000 villages in the State. Raj Reddy, Professor of Computer Science and Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University and chairman of the Governing Council of IIIT, Ajay Sawhney, Secretary, IT and Communications, and Prof. Govindarajulu, Dean, participated.

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