London: The UK-based IT group LogicaCMG plans to launch an expansion programme in outsourcing in India in a big way despite protests from union activists against loss of jobs.

LogicaCMG, which already employs 350 people in Bangalore, developing software and providing customers with telephone and Internet support, plans to increase the workforce to 500 by the end of this year, its managing director of global outsourcing Bob Fawthrop has said.

"The company will employ at least 1,500 in India by 2005," he said. "We are saying to our customers we will deliver a service to you wherever you are," he explained. "We will use a blend of different people to offer the cheapest cost. There is no risk to the customer. It is our risk."

At the BT's annual meeting last week, the Communication Workers' Union vented its anger at plans to employ 2,200 people in India. But the very next day, Tesco, the supermarket chain, joined the likes of British Airways, Prudential, HSBC and Powergen by announcing its own plans to move 350 jobs to Bangalore. India's potential was first identified by General Electric in the mid-1990s when it shifted thousands of back-office jobs to the subcontinent.

According to consultants McKinsey, 203 of the Fortune 1,000 companies have now outsourced in India. And what has today become a $ 1.5 billion industry for India is predicted to grow to $ 21 billion dollars by 2008, according to property consultants Cushman and Wakefield.

Indian firms are beginning to outsource to other countries, notably China, reports here said. LogicaCMG's Fawthrop said his company is also looking at opportunities in China, through "an Indian business we have contact with".

But whether jobs are lost to India or China, unions in Britain plan to campaign hard on the issue of outsourcing. On BT, the Communications Workers' Union said: "We have no argument with India or Indian workers.

Our issue is with BT. "BT is a UK company that derives its profits from UK customers and is they are obliged to support the UK economy... Savings made by moving work to India are minimal when compared to the billions the BT board lost while pursuing its recent ill-thought-out overseas acquisition strategy."

PTI