Mumbai, Feb. 9: Notwithstanding infrastructure bottlenecks and rising competition from countries like China, the Indian IT and ITeS industry is confident of generating a revenue of $36 billion this fiscal, a growth of 28 per cent over $28.4 billion reported last year.

Nasscom, in its strategic review released today, said the total revenue, including IT services, domestic, export and hardware, is expected to be close to $36.3 billion in 2005-06. The IT and ITeS sectors will contribute close to 4.8 per cent of the GDP this year, the apex software industry body said.

The IT software and services exports will contribute $23.4 billion.

IT exports are expected to account for nearly two-third of the total revenue at $13.2 billion, up from $10 billion last fiscal.

The domestic market has also grown nearly 22 per cent in 2005-06, contributing close to $4.3 billion compared with $3.5 billion last year.

“The year 2005 offered a steady growth for the industry. Along with increased presence of Indian IT companies across the globe, we saw new service lines emerging and the industry reached the next level in services offered,” Nasscom president Kiran Karnik said.

Total IT software and services employment is expected to reach 1.8 million by March 2006, thus making it one of the highest employment generating sectors. Despite the rosy picture, there are a few shortfalls affecting the industry. A major problem is getting trained manpower.

“There is a need for long-term investment in training. We have an edge over other countries like China right now. But we need to invest in training to keep up our leadership position,” Nasscom chairman S. Ramadorai said.

Regarding potential threats from China, Karnik said Indian IT companies need not worry. “It is estimated that less than 10 per cent of the global market for sourcing IT-ITeS services has been captured till date, indicating that there is a significant headroom for growth.”