Manpower malaise bothering IT companies

Is Indian software industry growing too fast making it unsustainable for long? Going by what the Indian IT industry experts and leaders have been harping about, this really seems to be the case. Every few weeks, I come across media reports with the now all too familiar headline, "India short of manpower in IT sector".

Are we really short of manpower. Are our IT companies desperately scouting for an oasis of manpower?Well, again there is a debate here. One group says that we are really short of engineers, soaking up so much of the engineers into the IT field that other fields are facing the brunt of this circumventing of human resources. The other argument is the denial of any real shortage of resources, but the lack of quality resources that the IT industry needs. The malaise if you observe is symptomatic of both these.

Is the Indian government doing anything to address these concerns? What can really be done? Well, it seems the government is definitely taking initiatives in the right direction, though the industry will need to wait a few years before it starts yielding fruit. Blogger Harsha Kumar has some excellent suggestions on what we need to revamp in the education system as a possible remedy to this problem.

Whatever it is that we need to do to put to rest the concerns of the industry, I also feel that the industry has grown too rapidly for its own good. If stupendous growth like this can wreak havoc on the infrastructure of a city like Bangalore, it surely could have our education system creaking and groaning under pressure. And who doesn't know that the most difficult time to change a system is when it is under strain. Its like trying to change wheels on a car which was earlier moving at 5 kmph and is now moving at 200 kmph !!!

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