The National Association of Software and Service Companies in India has warned of a potential shortfall of around 235,000 software professionals by 2008 if the current recruitment trend in the IT industry continues.

Though the demand for software professionals is expected to be approximately 1.1 million people by 2008 based on the current trends, supply of software professionals is projected to be just 885,000.

Kiran Karnik, president, Nasscom, said, "Though India has a large talent pool, with 167,000 engineering students and 1.54 million graduates passing out of India's educational institutions annually, some training gaps remain. We need to introduce software-related courses across various disciplines and impart practical training to enhance their preparedness to work in the IT industry."

A survey conducted by Nasscom has also estimated a 24.4 per cent growth in employment in the Indian IT industry for the year 2002-03 taking the total number of IT professionals in the country to around 650,000 professionals from 5.2 lakh at the end of last year.

As per the survey, of the 650,000 professionals, around 2,05,000 are employed in the IT software exports industry, 160,000 in the IT-enabled services industry, 25,000 in the domestic software market and there are over 260,000 IT professionals employed in the end-user organisations.

The study also indicated a high geographical disparity in the level of hiring of new IT professionals. The growth rate in hiring at 44 per cent was highest in south India, while it was lowest in the eastern region, which had a growth rate in hiring of just 6 per cent.

It also indicated that 79 per cent of the professionals in IT companies were men, whereas only 21 per cent were women.

This was exactly opposite to the ratio in the IT-enabled sector where the ratio of males to females was 35:65.

Another finding with respect to salaries and pay structures was that there was an average of an eight per cent rise in basic salary during 2002.

However, most companies are now increasingly adopting the variable pay concept in order to link pay to revenues and control costs.

The survey also revealed that 76 per cent of all software professionals had a graduate degree or above -- 13 per cent were M.Tech, MBA, CA, ICWA; 62 per cent were B Tech, BE or MCA; and 23 per cent were diploma-holders or graduates.