Bangalore: The two-day Nasscom India ITeS-BPO Strategy Summit 2004 started today (June 9, 2004) with industry leaders urging the Government to improve power, roads and communications that were hampering the growth of the $ 3.6 billion industry.

Setting the tone for the meet with his key note address, Infosys Managing Director and CEO Nandan M Nilekani said, the lack of infrastructure in the country was 'hitting at the root' of the ITeS-BPO sector which has generated over 70,000 jobs last year.

"Infrastructure is a critical part of the customer's value and supply chain. If our BPO centers cannot be accessed by good roads and do not have regular power supply, you are hitting at the root of success we intend to achieve," said Nilekani, whose firm has a BPO subsidiary Progeon.

The BPO industry, he said, would propel further growth if the Government "provided good infrastructure", adding that the industry's expansion into smaller towns depended hugely on the quality of infrastructure.

Highlighting the infrastructure hurdles, BT (Worldwide) Ltd Managing Director Arun Seth said, the sector's concern were also the lack of manpower in the middle management level.

"The challenges is how do you produce a 10 year scotch in two years," Seth said, saying there was abundance of fresh recruits and also in the CEO levels, but a vacuum in mid-level managers in the operational level.