Monday, July 31 2006 13:01 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mysore: Software major Infosys today (July 31, 2006) announced a bonanza of Rs 126 crore to its employees to mark the silver jubilee celebrations of the country's second biggest software exporter.

The trustees of Infosys Employees Welfare Trust, an independent trust, have decided and communicated to the company that they would distribute a part of the corpus of the trust amounting to Rs 126 crore to all its beneficiaries (employees), Infosys Chief Mentor and Chairman N R Narayana Murthy said.

The Trust had also decided that each of the beneficiary would get a certain amount depending on their tenure in the company, Murthy said at the 25th anniversary celebrations of the company here.

Speaking at the function, Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram said India's accomplishments in the IT can be replicated in steel, petroleum and mining sectors as all of them are knowledge-based.

Chidambaram said some of the employees of Infosys must try to build new institutions.

The Minister said India is the only country in the world where the working age population would continue to grow for the next 25 years.

"There is no other country, not even China, where the size of the working age population will continue to grow over the next 25 years," he said.

"If each one of those young men and women over the next 25 years can be educated, trained, imparted skills and put in a job or business, imagine the immense wealth that he or she will create", Chidambaram said.