'New visa rules by US, UK may pose challenge for Indian IT in 2018

New visa rules by countries like the US, UK, and Australia may pose challenge for Indian IT Industry in 2018 even as the sector may reach USD 150 billion mark, former Nasscom Chairman BVR Mohan Reddy has said.

"In 2018, we might see some more challenges for the IT industry. Again on the demand side you might not see any major challenges...8 to 10 per cent growth in spite of the industry base increasing to over USD 150 billion is still possible.

"However, the new regulatory challenges coming from new visa regime with Trump administration and changes to the visa rules in countries like UK, Australia, Singapore etc will bring down the peoples mobility and as a result flexibility in scaling businesses," Reddy said.

According to him, 2017 was an interesting year for the Indian IT industry as the demand for IT and IT-enabled services continued to grow around 8 to 10 per cent in constant currency terms and it is certainly a shade better than our original estimates earlier in the year.

According to him, 2017 was an interesting year for the Indian IT industry as the demand for IT and IT-enabled services continued to grow around 8 to 10 per cent in constant currency terms and it is certainly a shade better than our original estimates earlier in the year.

The adoption of new technologies is growing at a pace faster than what was anticipated by the industry and on the supply side, there is a serious challenge in reskilling or upskilling employee base in new technologies to meet new customer demands, he said.

"Growth has slowed down because of automation, AI, and machine learning. We see some signs of protectionism from countries around the world; however, we also witnessed an upsurge in the domestic market opportunity for technology solutions," he said.

The Start-up India programme has caught pace, with more than 5,900 start-ups already recognised by DIPP by end of 2017, Reddy added.