Nasscom ties up with SIDBI; vows 2,000 start-ups a year

Nasscom, the representative body of India's information technology industry, plans to encourage the formation of 10,000 IT start-ups in the next five years at the rate of 2,000 new companies a year, said its chairman N Chandrasekaran

Chandrasekaran, who is the chief executive officer of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), said the industry body is already working with the Planning Commission to prepare a plan toward this end.

"The report of how to go about it will be released in the next few weeks,'' said Krishnakumar Natarajan, vice-chairman of Nasscom.

He said Nasscom has signed an agreement with the state-run Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) for this purpose.

Nasscom however cannot any longer be considered to be fully representative of the IT industry. In recent days, several companies have complained that it is increasingly being controlled by a section of the sector; and there are murmurs that a rival body may be formed.