KT Rama Rao asks techies to hone skills or perish in race

Hyderabad: With the IT employees constantly battling with retrenchments, minister K.T. Rama Rao advised the techies to update their skill and learn new ones. 

Speaking at the launch of the IT Department Annual Report 2017-2018, he said, “This is an industry where attrition is high. This is an industry where you need to re-skill and up-skill or reinvent yourself. If they are unable to perform, there are no freelancers or kind of charity in this kind of business. Unless you will perform you will perish, you need to up-skill and re-skill.”  

As there are some IT unions coming up due to the layoffs and also there is an increasing demands to tighten rules around terminations, the minister said, adding: “We cannot live in isolation and cannot have our own set of rules. Whatever is happening in Information technology across the world will resonate here and vice versa.”

Telangana IT exports grew at a rate of 15.6 per cent since the formation of state, with 1.5lakh jobs being added. This is roughly 150 per cent of the national average during the same period, with India growing at an annual rate of 10.3 per cent, the minister said. 

Mr Rao pointed out that he was presenting his last report in this tenure and is confident of winning next elections said, “The Telangana IT exports recorded Rs 93422 crore for 2017-18. About 1.5 lakh jobs have been created directly and around 3.8-4lakh indirect employment have been created.” 

In 2016-17, the IT exports accounted for Rs 85,470 crore.