The dearth of IT engineers is forcing the Indian IT companies to recruit around 40,000-50,000 non-IT professionals and science graduates in this financial year -- the highest by any industry in the country.

This is notwithstanding the fact that over 10 lakh IT engineers are being churned out annually by the 17,625 IT and management institutes in the country.

IT majors such as Infosys Technologies, Tata Consultancy Services, Tech Mahindra, GTL and Wipro Technologies are some of the companies in the forefront of recruiting non-IT personnel for IT jobs, while other IT companies and the unorganised sector is also close behind.

"The requirement of IT engineers is huge, with the industry needing an estimated 50 lakh personnel in the current financial year itself, of which around 50 to 55 per cent had been recruited. However, recruiting another 45 per cent in the last quarter is quite unlikely, with a maximum of around 10 per cent likely to be added," GTL group Chief People's Officer S N Jadhav said.

Jadhav, who is also doing his thesis on 'Impact of Technology on Employment Market' expects recruitment of around 50,000 personnel in the fourth quarter.

GTL intends to recruit over 1,000-1,500 non-IT employees in this year and will train them for the jobs.

Reflecting the sentiment, Infosys Technologies' chief mentor N R Narayana Murthy said, "There is a serious dearth in talent across all the verticals of the IT industry, and we have been continuously recruiting non-IT personnel in the company."

The company had forecast an addition of 25,000 employees and later revised it to 28,000, recruited around 25,000 personnel during the year. The IT bellwether company would recruit over 3,000 hands in the last quarter of this year, of which a considerable number would be non-IT hands.

Tech Mahindra will recruit 1,000 non-IT graduates and management students for IT jobs in the current financial year, of which 500-600 of them will be graduates (BSc and BCom) having experience of 1-2 years.

According to L K Bhatia, vice-president (resource management group), Tech Mahindra, "I wouldn't say that the recruitment of graduates is due to a dearth of skilled personnel, though that is one of the reasons. Bringing down total employment cost of the company and reducing attrition are the main reasons."

TCS has rolled out a programme -- 'Ignite' -- much ahead of the curve. The programme intends to train non-engineering talent to work on IT assignments.

"We have already enrolled 500 people this year, and we intend to increase it to 2,500 next year. The programme will help us to reduce the pressure we face due to lack of skilled manpower," TCS Global Head (Human Resources), S Padmanabhan said.

Wipro has a tie-up with Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, and is currently training 2,000 personnel for its IT initiatives.