US benefits hugely from Indian IT firms: Nasscom

Indian IT firms paid $ 22.5 billion in taxes in US, generated over 400,000 jobs

India’s export-focused information technology (IT) sector contributed $22.5 billion in taxes to the US government and generated 411,000 US jobs, including 300,000 by American citizens between 2011 and 2013, the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) said on Monday.

It asked for more open markets for Indian IT workers in the US. Indian companies have invested $2 bn in the US in building infrastructure and generating jobs in these three years, it said. Job generation in the US by Indian IT service companies grew by 10 per cent annually in the four years to 2014, six times the average job generation of 1.7 per cent by the US economy in the same period, Nasscom declared, in a study it issued, titled 'Contributions of India's tech industry to the US economy'.

“Indian IT organisations benefit from access to the US market, just as American IT organisations benefit from their investments and operations in India,” said commerce and industry minister Nirmala Sitharaman, on issuing these findings in Washington DC. "This momentum is surely going to increase manifold with new partnership opportunities emerging in the areas of Digital India and Smart Cities for American technology firms.”

India’s IT sector is supporting an estimated 300,000 jobs for US citizens and permanent resident permit holders in 2015, said Nasscom.  “The two-way flow of investments and intellectual talent is central to the growing commercial and strategic relationships between India and the US,” said Nasscom president R Chandrashekhar.

Companies such as Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro had spent nearly $50 million on philanthropy in the US, helping 120,000 American nationals improve their skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, it claimed.