Coimbatore, Oct 19. (PTI): India's vibrant IT software and services industry has been projected to reach an export potential of $ 57 to 65 billion by 2008, Union IT and Communications Minister Dayanidhi Maran said on Wednesday.
The software industry in India, one of the pillars of economic development, is currently worth $ 29.5 billion of which 23.4 billion was exports-- about 20 per cent of the nation's total exports, Maran said, after inaugurating the Coimbatore facility of Robert Bosch India.
India is expected to sustain its leadership position in future also, as export revenue from ITES-BPO sector grew from $ 2.5 billion in 2002-03 to $ 6.3 billion in 2005-06, he said.
The IT and ITES-BPO sector has become the biggest employment generator amongst young college graduates, with the number of jobs almost doubling each year, Maran said.
The number of professionals employed in India by IT and ITES sectors has grown from 2.84 lakh in 1999-2000 to 1.3 million in 2005-06, growing by over 2.84 lakh in the last year alone, he claimed.
While the pace of recruitment picked up for IT services, ITES-BPO companies were recruiting in large numbers through out the year, Maran said adding it was estimated that the ITES-BPO sector hired 400 personnel every working day of the year.
India's sustained leadership over other competing offshore sourcing destinations was driven by strong fundamentals comprising a large pool of qualified, English-speaking manpower, that was increasing each year, Maran said.
On the telecom sector, Maran said that India has taken long strides in the area from a monopolistic approach till mid 90's to the present day aggressive private and public sector competition.
This has resulted in phenomenal improvement in tele-density, growing internet penetration and rapid expansion of mobile telephony across the country, he said.
Stating that more than 170 million network in India was one of the largest in the world and second largest among the emerging economies after China, Maran said that the wireless sector has already overtaken the fixed line service in India.
Expressing happiness that Bosch was investing Rs 1800 crore in India from 2005-2008, Maran said that both the Centre and Tamil Nadu Governments would be happy to facilitate these important expansion plans of Bosch.
On Tamil Nadu, the Minister said the State Government was keen to position Coimbatore as an important IT destination.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, M Karunanidhi has drawn up a master plan to promote seven two-tier cities in the State and appealed to the people not to migrate, since they would get employment in their own places through this initiative.
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