London: UK-based IT group LogicaCMG plans to launch an expansion programme in outsourcing in India in a big way despite protests from union activists against loss of jobs.

LogicaCMG that already employs 350 people in Bangalore, developing software and providing customers with telephone and internet support, plans to increase the workforce to 500 by the end 2003, its managing director of global outsourcing Bob Fawthrop has said.

"The company will employ at least 1,500 in India by 2005," he said.

"We are saying to our customers: we will deliver a service to you wherever you are," he explained. "We will use a blend of different people to offer the cheapest cost. There is no risk to the customer. It is our risk."

At the BT's annual meeting on July 16, the communication workers union vented its anger at plans to employ 2,200 people in India.

But the very next day Tesco, the supermarket chain, joined the likes of British Airways, Prudential, HSBC and Powergen by announcing its own plans to move 350 jobs to Bangalore.

General Electric first identified India’s potential in the mid 1990s when it shifted thousands of back-office jobs to the subcontinent.

According to consultants McKinsey, 203 of the Fortune 1,000 companies have now outsourced in India. And what has today become a 1.5 billion dollar industry for India is predicted to grow to 21 billion dollars by 2008, according to property consultants Cushman and Wakefield.

PTI