Indian IT firms are launching various programmes to make the student community "employable" and meet requirements of the industry.

Though India churns out over 325,000 lakh engineering graduates every year, experts say just a third of these are actually "industry-ready".

Wipro Technologies says most of the engineering graduates who are in their final semester have very little programming expertise and are not exposed to the industry.

As a result, it takes them at least six months to become productive in projects after recruitment, according to Rajesh Ram Mishra, chief technology officer, Telecom & Product Engineering Solution, Wipro Technologies.

Adds S Sadagopan, founder director of Indian Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore: "Quality is a big problem in the industry. In 80 per cent of the cases, there are no proper teachers in many engineering colleges. There are lot of colleges which should not exist, but were started under political patronage."

The US produces just 85,000 engineers every year, but they have the largest number of software developers in the world. China produces 600,000 engineering graduates every year, is way ahead of India.

Even as quality tends to become a major issue before he industry, the estimate by Nasscom is that there will be a shortfall of 500,000 technology professionals in India by 2010. 

In the absence of any help from the government, the industry is trying to solve the problem on its own.

"Today, the campuses are the primary supply base of professionals to the IT industry and they are the biggest partners for our growth. But I feel that the curricula of engineering colleges do not meet the industry needs. That way, the industry is moving, the academia needs to keep pace," said Hari T, Head of HR, Satyam.

Satyam, for instance, has introduced a programme, `Campulse' which reaches out to campuses and helps them strengthen their ability to service the industry.

Infosys, through its `Campus Connect' programme, aims at helping engineering graduates to suit the requirements of the IT industry.

The programme helps the company regularly interact with academia and enhance the availability of talent.

Wipro has launched 'CodeZap Guru', a programme that aims at developing code writing ability of final year engineering students and supports them with training materials. Mindtree Consulting, through its annual 'Osmosis Day' programme, reaches out to campuses to involve students in presenting papers and technical projects.

The programme gives the undergraduate students an opportunity to exercise and improve technical, written and verbal communication skills, says the company.

To promote secured code writing among student developers at the college and university level, Microsoft Corporation has launched the 'Security Shootout' initiative. Accenture, which has a strong focus on campuses, has launched a programme 'Campus Corridor'.

The programme, besides helping the company recruit from select colleges, engages them by supporting them in areas like curriculum development, faculty training, student seminars and sponsorships.

"Campus Corridor, in its true sense of the word, ensures a significant long term association between Accenture and these colleges which will help in building an 'industry-ready' talent pool," says Sandeep Arora, Lead Executive, Accenture Delivery Centre for Technology in India.