Hyderabad: De-regulation of key sectors to encourage adoption of IT in domestic market, strengthening the supply base of knowledge workers and negotiating work permit were some of the recommendations made by NASSCOM to the government to achieve the long-term revenue of $ 77 billion from the IT sector by 2008.

Setting the agenda for government and NASSCOM, based on the NASSCOM-Mckinsey revised report, the two day summit on IT and IT enabled services (ITES) concluded on June 11 outlining the need to tap growth opportunities in new geographies, vertical and service lines.

The revised report, which eliminated $ 10 billion e-commerce and scaled down domestic sales, has taken into account all contingencies including the proposed Convergence Bill, NASSCOM president Kiran Karnik told reporters.

Key enablers for the government, the report suggested, were to address specific concerns for the ITES sector, which has swelled from $ 17 billion to $ 24 billion in the revised edition, removal of key regulatory barriers and driving growth in domestic market as the new report predicted a fall in revenue in this area.

Developing second tier towns as software hubs, ensuring a supply of knowledge workers and negotiating work permits and totalisation agreements are the other areas the government should focus to make India a global IT destiny, he said.

PTI