Conceptual Investigation to Bridge The Industry - Academia Skill Gap With Respect To Engineering Graduates In India From IT / ITES Industry Perspective.

Indian IT industry has a major footprint globally and is contributing substantially to Indian economy. To cope up with the global challenge of skill and capacity availability, Indian IT industry is looking up for "ready-to-deploy" skills. Due to growing competition, there is huge cost pressure on the IT industry and hence industry is largely dependent on graduate / post graduate fresher talent. To achieve this, there is large dependency on how industry and academics are connected to work jointly to meet the goal of onboarding "ready-to-deploy" talent. Industry needs to work closely with academics by means of spelling out the skills which they expect from fresher talent as well as work with academics to share their practical knowledge and experience. As per UGC data as of February 2017, India had 789 universities, 37,204 colleges and 11,443 stand-alone institutions which is highest in the world in terms of number of education institutes. Survey conducted by NASSCOM in 2011 showcased that 75% of IT graduates are not employed. Considering the issue faced by todays engineering fresher, this paper aims at highlighting current and future initiatives to bridge the gaps between academics and industry by means of research and development driving governance of academics with special focus on engineering colleges, developing centre of excellence which will help academicians to cope up with changing needs of the industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]