NASSCOM to hold CEOs meet on Budget implications

Mumbai, Mar 12: The voice of the Indian Information Technology industry, National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) will hold a CEOs session in Bangalore on March 14 to study the impact of the implications of 2008-09 budget on the Indian IT industry.

The interactive session for members with a high profile panel of experts would deliberate on the strategies that companies could employ for optimum leverage, and comment on specific issues faced by by the industry. The much anticipated extension of the tax holiday of STPI scheme, which did not come through, and increased tax on packaged software were some of the areas of concern for the IT industries which had expressed widely disappointment over the measures of Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram.

NASSCOM expected the overall Indian IT-BPO revenues to grow by over 33 per cent and reach USD 64 billion by the end of 2008-09.

During the same period, direct employment in the sector was expected to reach nearly two million, an increase of about 375,000 professionals over the previous year. As a proportion of national GDP, the Indian technology sector revenues have grown from 1.2 per cent in FY 1998 to an estimated 5.5 per cent in FY 2008, thus forming an integral part of the growth story of India's economy and immense talent pool.

Exports contributed 64 percent to the overall revenue aggregate to remain a significant part of the Indian IT-BPO revenues, while the domestic market was growing.

UNI