National Association for Software and Service Companies said on Wednesday that new service lines would be the key drivers of growth in IT Services, IT-enabled services and business process outsourcing sectors in 2003.

Nasscom has identified new service lines, including engineering, research and development, logistics and sales as catalysts of growth, Nasscom president Kiran Karnik said in Mumbai.

The Indian industry was only able to tap about two per cent of the global IT services industry, and tapping the new new service lines would improve the sectors growth to 4.8 per cent by 2008, he said at the Nasscom 2003 seminar.

Urging the software industry to tap ITS, ITES and BPO sectors to broad-base their portfolio of services, Karnik said the potential of the benefits of service lines like network infrastructure management, outsourcing, training and education should also be utilised for the maximum benefit of the industry.

"With off-shoring becoming the mainstream of the industry, Indian IT firms are expected to penetrate new service lines like systems integration, packaged software support and installation," said Nasscom chairman Arun Kumar.