US cannot deny India advantage: Mittal

HYDERABAD: Equipped with a ready infrastructure in telecommunication and IT, India has the potential to capture a larger pie of the chunk of global market in communication. The CII partnership summit that was inaugurated in Hyderabad today reiterated this point. Under the theme, "Networking Businesses: Linking Nations", the summit saw representatives from USA, China, Canada, Malaysia, Turkey and Switzerland sharing their points of view.

Inaugurating the CII event, LK Advani, Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister of India said that it is time for India Inc. to stretch the unleashed telecom revolution from the rural to the global dimension. Chandrababu Naidu, Chief Minister of AP also present at the occasion, said that India with its huge educated workforce, is now ready to capture a bigger pie in global IT services.

"In the year 2000 there were only 0.1 million jobs that moved offshore from the US and this figure will increase to 0.6 million by 2005 and to 3.3 million by the end of year 2015. We want to be ready for capturing a bigger chunk for the country. The new divide in the world will be between those with the knowledge and those without knowledge. We must learn and be part of the knowledge-based society," he explained.

Talking about the prevalent BPO line of business, Naidu reiterated that more and more companies would look seriously towards India as a favored destination for BPO like activities in the near future.

Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman and Managing Director of Bharti Enterprises said that the US is not in a position to brush aside the India advantage. "Despite the New Jersey Bill that discourages outsourcing to countries like India, they will have to reconsider this move as it would be detrimental to their own growth. As of now ITES work is done at a rate of $20-$22 and India offers the same work at around $ 8. So we have the economic advantage, " he said.

"India employs one million people to serve the back-office operations of the global community; this saves upto $ 125 billion per year for countries like the US ," Mittal informed.