If not IT then what

The year was 2004, the dot com boom effect was over and companies started to invest in their IT systems. Companies was recruiting in hordes; Infosys, Patni, TCS and the list goes on and on and on. Every day I heard of one walk-in or the other. Each walk-in had more than 5, 000 people queuing up since morning to enter the premises and give their aptitude test. No, the dot com boom didn't return but the boom gave birth to a new type of IT job, outsourcing. Companies in developed world wanted to generate profits and so they opened sweat shops in India (for IT) and China (for manufacturing). Big companies made big money. I remember the ABN Amro deal which TCS and Infy got a share of. The news was flashed across TV channels in India. People wanted to get into IT 'coz it meant a 'fat' salary and pride of being associated to brands like TCS and Infosys. Parents felt proud in telling that my son/daughter worked for TCS/Infosys/Patni/Amdocs. Were benefits good enough? Maybe. Was the job satisfying? No, for the most part.

Unfortunately, in India the only industry that generates job is IT. No other industry comes even remotely close in hiring more than a thousand people every quarter. In India the problem of plenty will always be a magnanimous problem. We have too many graduates and all of them need employment. The cream gets selected in their niche fields but the people on the other side of the fence have to choose IT and if the job is paying well then why not. 2007 was the golden era for IT. Fat paychecks were the talk of the street. Real estate boomed. Retail market boomed. Indian economy was thriving on theories of internal consumption. Government gave concessions to IT stalwarts and awarded them with great honors. However, is IT industry a boon or a curse for a nation's future?

In more ways than one, it is a curse rather than a boon. Why is that? that's because the people working in these industries aren't doing anything challenging. Companies hire big consulting firms like Deloitte. They study, understand and document the required changes to the system. These requirements get passed on to business analysts in IT firms who then make it a bit more simpler for coders to understand. Coding after a certain level is a manual job. You know the technology, you know the system and then only thing left is the code. IT firms aren't doing enough to ignite that passion in young minds to think innovation. A country that cannot encourage it's youth to innovate cannot grow.

Even though people in IT get exhausted of their monotonous life cycle they cannot do much because they don't know where else to go. When i speak to my friends in IT today, most of them have hit a glass ceiling. They hate IT. They hate what they are doing. They hate their bosses and management. They hate the uncertain industry. They hate everything about IT but they still have to remain in IT. Unfortunately, other industries that didn't pay much had their employees suffering due to increased cost of living.

I fear the government doesn't understand this. We aren't doing enough to provide impetus to other industries that can generate jobs for Indian youth the way IT does. Don't make IT another Mumbai, a city with broken back due to overcrowding. Invest in other industries. Generate green jobs, re haul the infrastructure and energy system, build dams and proper irrigation for agriculture and encourage entrepreneurship. Even though I don't have a great deal of admiration for Narayan Murthy I think he did a right thing by investing his Infy shares in a VC enterprise because he understands that just one single successful enterpreneur can generate millions of jobs.

Let the future of economic growth in this country not be outsourced to IT, give other industries a chance. Let us give our youth more options to choose from.