Fears that a sluggish economy and an election year compulsions in the US might collude to adversely impact the Indian BPO scene have been put to rest by NASSCOM which believes that business from other countries will offset any such moves.

Som Mittal, the NASSCOM chairman, was quoted by the Financial Times as stating that on both counts India was safe.

"There is realization (in the US) that outsourcing helps the business become more efficient," he told the paper in response to a question about how the US administration would react to job loss caused by outsourcing in an election year.

He admitted that there was some cause for concern in view of reduced business from the US, which now accounts for about 61 per cent of India's BPO business with 30 per cent coming from Europe.

Of late, companies have been trying to diversify into the UK, continental Europe and Japan with NASSCOM believing that the decline in financial services business would be offset by a robust growth from manufacturing and healthcare.

At another level, Mittal admitted that the Indian outsourcing industry was facing two big challenges in terms of employee training and expanding operations beyond the Tier-I cities of India that includes Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.

He suggested that big companies like Wipro, Infosys and TCS should take the onus of staff training on themselves as India's education system could not keep pace with the demand from employees, who reportedly hired 3.75 lakh new professionals in 2007-08.