NIIT ENTERS RECRUITMENT SECTOR

New Delhi, 20 November 2006

New Delhi, November 21 (INFA): The National Institute of Information Technology (NIIT), Asia’s largest IT trainer has entered the recruitment and proficiency testing services space, with the launch of NIIT Litmus, a new entity that will cater to the manpower needs of IT and ITES organization.

A recent NASSCOM study shows that the IT-ITES segments will generate over one million jobs over the next three years.  While this presents an encouraging picture of the employment opportunity in the country, the industry is facing an acute shortage of qualified professionals and is currently unable to manage its recruitment needs.

The NIIT Litmus is equipped to handle over one million assessment tests for IT-ITES companies, in the first year of its operations.  It will have dedicated assessment centres in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore in the initial phase.

The Indian ITES sector, which was growing steadily at over 30 per cent, was facing a challenge in the form of shortage of skilled manpower.  Aggravating the situation further were the conventional methods of hiring, which were inhibiting the growth of organizations.

The Institute will offer a comprehensive range of testing and assessment solutions that will focus on IT skills, project management, logical reasoning, numerical and analytical ability, sentence construction, verbal skills, pronunciation, personality and leadership styles tests and customized process specific tests, amongst others, to its clients.  Convergys, a leading business process outsourcing company is among the first two large customers of NIIT Litmus, that have already mandated NIIT to help them rapidly scale their head count.

The NIIT has already developed this solution for a number of clients such as ITT, one of the largest online universities in the US.  ITT uses NIIT’s testing services to assess the skills and knowledge of its students.  Google uses NIIT’s technology platform CLiKS, a world-class assessment engine, for testing and training its employees.

The Institute has identified new areas of growth in the rapidly emerging services sector.  The company has recently launched NIIT Imperia, Centre for Advanced Learning to offer executive management education programmes in alliance with the Indian Institutes of Management in Ahmedabad, Calcutta and Indore and IFBI, the Institute of Finance Banking & Insurance, in partnership with ICICI Bank to offer training programmes in the financial services sector. ---INFA

Rs.2000-CRORE GIFT TO HYDERABAD

HYDERABAD, November 21 (INFA):  In a sudden but welcome move, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddi has announced recently a Rs.2000-crore worth development projects to be taken up in Hyderabad’s old city area in the next five years.

This area, it may be added, is not a well-developed one as compared to the main urban area of the city.  Mostly Muslims live in the old city area lacking some basic amenities.

The Chief Minister announced the mega gift after recently visiting the old city area, long neglected by the administration.----INFA