A clampdown on air travel, freebies disappearing and paying for your tea and Pepsi, every expense in now tracked minutely - a fallout of the credit crisis and the general economic slowdown abroad that has led to Indian companies tightening their belts.

The pinch has been felt sharpest by the IT and ITeS sector where the salary and perks were booming till last year, as the inbound outsourcing business in India has slowed down.

However, the situation could have been much worse had it not been the smart handling of the Human Resource minds. Where most companies in the West are firing thousands of employees, India's IT sector has only resorted to smart cost cuts and redeployment of talent.

Infosys has used the power of consensus - it has set up a portal, which invites employees to send in ideas ranging from simple energy saving to efforts in other areas to help the IT giant reduce costs.

So far, the company has apparently received over 1,000 such ideas, which it is evaluating. It also says there could be more such measures in the near future.

One such measure being implemented at Infosys is the option that it has provided to employees to go on a sabbatical and work for NGOs.

To qualify for the sabbatical, employees should have been with Infosys for at least two years. During this period they will be paid 50 per cent of their salary with the rest coming in from the NGOs they are working with.

Wipro on the other hand is deploying its newly recruited software graduates in the BPO sector without salary cuts. While many may baulk at the idea of this downgrading in duties, Wipro has not gone back on its offer letters and has promised to absorb all the new engineering graduates.

While there are rumours about low salary hikes and stricter appraisals leading to employees quitting Tata Consultancy Services, the company firmly maintains that the attrition rate has not risen above the normal levels.

Other IT firms have moved their employees back to India instead of keeping them at project sites abroad.

While the revenue per employee is almost the same onsite and offshore, the cost per employee is lower offshore, giving companies better margins. A large part of their US-based sales forces are now being recalled.