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G D Gautama, Principal secretary, State IT department, On how the government is addressing IT manpower shortage How is the government addressing the problem of skilled manpower shortage in the IT and ITes sector? We have constituted a committee with academic guides as its members. These experts are from IIM Joka, IIT Kharagpur, BE College, Jadavpur University.They will formulate the academic and training guidelines that are specific to the IT and ITes industries. The IT industry is in a dynamic situation and has distinct requirements. The primary idea is to understand and bridge the gap between these requirements and improve the quality of professionals being churned out. We have started training programmes in conjunction with Webel. We are also looking at good private institutes capable of imparting proper training. What areas need to be looked into to better the standard of IT professionals in Kolkata? First, soft skills need to developed which includes the ability to speak English fluently, presentation making capability and good communication skills. There is a dearth of technicians at the middle-level in specific domains as people keep shifting jobs at this level. What is the future of West Bengal as an IT hub? Currently, we have about 26,000 IT professionals here and our share in the national IT revenue is 5.1 per cent. Our target is to reach a revenue share of 15 per cent. To achieve this, we have to generate about 1.75 lakh IT professionals. In the ITes sector, we need about 2.35 lakh professionals, which we intend achieving by 2010.