Nasscom Summit focusses on manpower shortage in BPOs

The two-day Nasscom HR Summit 2005 held in Chennai recently focussed its attention on finding ways to resolve the current human resources crisis in the Indian BPO industry. With attrition rates increasing sharply even at established companies, and the segment’s need for people continuing to rise, the summit urged both the government and campuses to come to the industry’s rescue.

“Unless the government does something to bail out the industry, we will soon be overtaken by China,” opines Kiran Karnik, President of Nasscom.

Elaborating on the government’s role in strengthening human resources, Karnik says that it is still the government which has the power to create institutions and fund them. China is growing with a vengeance and may establish hundreds of premier technical education institutions (such as IIT) in the near future. “We have an edge over the Chinese in terms of comfort level in English-speaking skills. But their number of graduates and post-graduates with soft-skill sets has been growing phenomenally. The Chinese government has been giving a great thrust to education,” he points out, adding that Indian universities need to increase their pace of functioning and include the latest concepts in their curricula.

Giving an impetus to its ongoing IT Workforce Development Initiative, Nasscom has signed an MoU with the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) for strengthening Indian technical education through curricula, faculty, infrastructure and pedagogy improvements.

“Education, and nothing else, is the future of the country,” says Karnik. He explains that the primary objectives of the initiative were identifying the needs of the IT industry in terms of the number of people, skill sets and quality in various disciplines at different levels. Strengthening Indian professional education in line with the IT industry’s requirements was also needed.

Nasscom would help AICTE in projecting the manpower requirements of the industry. In addition, Nasscom and AICTE will undertake initiatives such as curriculum review, training modules, database, and study international models.

Nasscom has also signed a similar MoU with the University Grants Commission recently.

Other initiatives include catalysing the interface between the industry and academia through specific programmes, and exploring alliances and programmes for specific initiatives with corporate, academic associations and consultancy firms.

— Srinivas Roopi