The booming information technology sector is not city-centric as its benefits are also easily visible in rural India, felt Nasscom chief Kiran Karnik.
He was delivering the inaugural address at a one-day IT seminar on "Destination Nagpur", organised jointly by Nasscom, Vidarbha Economic Development Council and Vidarbha Association of Software Exporters in Mumbai recently.
Karnik said that the IT sector was poised for a quantum leap with its contribution to exports all set to touch $60 billion by 2010. Exports from the sector had already crossed the Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion) mark on March 31, 2005 even as the sector employed 13 lakh (1.3 million) people directly and over 39 lakh (3.9 million) indirectly, he maintained.
Karnik said that the IT sector had emerged as the top contributor to the economy and would continue to be a key propeller of its growth.
He said that the sector would grow by 30 per cent this year and require another 25,000 professionals to achieve the anticipated growth. "Companies will have to increasingly focus on tier II cities like Nagpur for their recruitment needs," he observed.
The Nasscom president said that the boom being experienced in the realty sector had a lot to do with the growth in the IT sector.
"New buildings and fresh infrastructure are being added everyday and this requires a large work force most of which is coming from rural India," Karnik said.
Noting how application of IT products had made life simpler, he gave the example of ITC's Chaupal initiative from which farmers could get all information related to their produce on the Internet.
The sector is silently bringing about a social transformation, he said listing telecom, banking, airlines and railways as areas where the impact of IT could be easily assessed.
"Gone are the days when people used to get money from banks on some fixed days of a week. Anywhere and anytime banking has changed this," he observed.
Karnik said that IT sector was an equal opportunity employer and had a large number of women doing high paying jobs in the country.
"The industry has given respect to women besides providing social security," he pointed out.