Dale Carnegie, a prestigious US based university, is exploring the idea of setting up an IT finishing school in Karnataka, according to a senior state government official. The finishing school aims to provide engineering graduates with specialised training in order to make them ready for the IT industry.

Dale Carnegie is the latest to consider establishing such an institute in the state, after the Dayananda Sagar Institutions and the Mysore-based Raman Institute of Information Technology decided to establish IT finishing schools in Bangalore and Mysore respectively.

Sources said Dale Carnegie had identified 35 acres of land in Bidadi to establish the finishing school, which aims at training 10,000 engineering graduates a year.

According to Karnataka IT & BT Secretary M N Vidyashankar, there would be a demand of 110,000 IT graduates in the state alone in 2007-08. He added that there would be a huge gap between the demand and supply for skilled personnel in the IT sector in the country. "On an average, 30 per cent of IT professionals are being recruited in Karnataka alone," he said.

In order to address the gap, Karnataka has taken the lead by setting up India's first IT finishing school at Mysore, to be run by RIIT. Entailing an investment of Rs 11.4 crore, the schools aims to train 5,000 students in the first year of operation. The school will be inaugurated on June 6, said Vidyashankar.

The Karnataka Udyoga Mitra has provided five acres of land in Mysore's industrial area to develop the school.

The second IT finishing school, proposed by Dayananda Sagar Institutions, aims to train 10,000 students and will be located in Bangalore.

"The finishing schools aim to train students from the tier-II and tier-III institutions who aspire for IT jobs and don't get it. The government is playing the role of a facilitator by providing them proper training in partnership with the industry. The institutes will provide 100 per cent job guarantee to the students," Vidyashankar added.

The fee at these schools has been pegged at Rs 75,000. Syndicate Bank has announced a 100 per cent loan for students from Karnataka towards payment of their course fee; repayment can be done over a period of five years.