Bullish on growth of Indian software industry, technology czar N R Narayana Murthy today equated India's success in this space with China's emergence as 'the factory of the world'.
He also said that software industry has overtaken PSUs as biggest job creator in the country with about 32 lakh-strong workforce and further addition of two lakh new jobs a year.
"Today TCS, Cognizant, Infosys and Wipro add more high quality and more highly disposable income based jobs in India than any other company has done in the last hundred years," said Murthy, who had founded Infosys with five others in 1981.
"The software industry in India employs about 3.2 million professionals and adds about 2,00,000 jobs every year.
Therefore this industry has replaced the public sector as the largest creator of jobs," Murthy said at the Commonwealth Science Conference here.
He recently stepped down as Non-executive Chairman of Infosys, known as the bellwether of Indian IT industry.
"Such jobs have stimulated the Indian economy in a significant manner; our youngsters buy vehicle, they buy home, they go on vacation, they shop in super markets and they go to restaurant. "It is estimated that this industry creates three jobs in secondary and tertiary sectors of our economy for every direct job that has been created by this industry," he added.
Murthy said the software industry has boosted the international image of India like no other sector. "
Wherever you go in the developed world there is a new respect for India thanks to the Indian software industry. India has gained reputation as the software development centre of the world much like China's reputation as the factory of the world. "Many influential authors all over the world have told me that our industry is an important reason for India being bracketed with the enormously successful China," Murthy said.
He also said the software industry is expected to grow between 12 and 14 per cent during the next five years. "... this is the only industry from India that has introduced innovation in the developed market, no other company from India has contributed some thing like this to the developed market," he added.
Emergence of Indian software industry heralded a new confidence, a new mindset and a new paradigm in Indian business, according to Murthy.
"For the first time in the history of this country in three hundred years the country felt that it had arrived on the international business scene," he said.
Speaking about the industry's contribution to the country's exports and foreign exchange, Murthy said, "Thanks to this industry the country is in a strong balance of payment position in spite of oil prices rocketing."
Meanwhile, Biocon Chief Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw said science and technology had to be an integral part of the economic agenda for companies to really invest and believe in science and technology as the future of their economic prosperity.
Mazumdar-Shaw said: "It is extremely important for us to be serious about it rather than just taking note of it."
Pointing out that regulatory complexity as uncertainty was the big deterrent to people investing in scientific ventures, Mazumdar- Shaw said: "This is some thing we really need to focus on to make sure that the regulatory ease for not just doing business, but to innovate is actually some thing that we need to focus on."
She also said that there was lack of Intellectual Property-oriented culture in our academic research institutes, adding that "....this is something we really need to focus on because IP is going to be extremely important in innovation cycle."
The Biocon Chief said the way forward is really about thrust on science and technology, making science and technology a very important economic agenda; financial autonomy and freedom to operate for academic research and meritocracy in government research institutions, among others. "We also need to frame science and technology policy," Mazumdar- Shaw added.
