IT talent crisis ahead, warns Mohandas Pai

Higher education in India is not up to the mark and there is lack of adequate faculty in colleges resulting in low quality of education. Non-availability of trained workforce is putting strain on the education system and the cost of training is increasing continuously, said Mr T.V. Mohandas Pai, Director, Human Resources, Infosys Technologies Ltd.

"Government policy and regulation is not conducive to the IT industry. The Government is insensitive to the industry's requirements and there is lack of action on the ground. We are going to have a crisis because of this. There is inherent bias against the private sector," he said at Connect 2006, this year's information, communication and technology event organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry.

Capacity creation

Speaking on bridging the talent gap, Mr Pai said in 1,520 engineering colleges 5.25 lakh seats were available. Of this, 4.60 lakh people would join colleges this year, 3.6 lakh would become graduates and of this 2 lakh had reasonable quality.

Mr Pai said the attrition rate among faculty was 15 per cent (out of every 100, 15 leave the college), and there were nearly 40,000 vacancies in various colleges. On manpower demand, he said the supply inequity would exist in different industry verticals such as IT, retail, banking and government.

Of the existing base of 85 lakh workers in the organised sector, 30 per cent were to retire within five years. Replacement demand and growth would put stress on capacity creation. Top schools in the US accounted for 40 per cent of the graduates while in India, IITs accounted for only 1 per cent. There was an urgent need to build capacity in the premier institutions, he said.

Call for collaboration

The Indian economy was growing at 8 per cent, and estimated to double from $800 billion to $1.6 trillion in 10 years and to $3.2 trillion in 20 years. The IT industry was annually growing at 30 per cent. It was estimated that the current workforce was 1.2 million with 3,60,000 more to be added this year. India needed an estimated 2.3 million strong IT and BPO workforce by 2010, he said.

"With the IT industry taking away most of the graduates, the public sector will be in a deep crisis," he said. There should be better collaboration among the industry, academia and socio-political system to bridge the talent gap. Industry needed to get directly involved with academia and initiate programmes that were high leverage-lower per capita cost, he said.

Retaining faculty

According to Mr S Mahalingam, Chief Financial Officer, Tata Consultancy Services, the challenge in the education system is engaging faculty members to provide relevant skills for the industry. There was also the challenge of growth after the person joins the company. Retaining people is another key issue faced by companies. While getting the right people is vital, talent management is an extremely important issue, he said.