IT in India - Effects and side-effects on our economy

In the recent past (last 10yrs or so), India has witnessed lot of IT product/services companies making a mark globally. This has not just bought prosperity (in terms of high earnings), but also has provided jobs to millions. In the midst of this development, there are some questions that come to my mind on the kind of workforce that is joining the IT industry. May be all can share their thoughts and kill some time in our boring jobs,

Is it really worth to join IT?

People are moving from Engg colleges (mech, electrical, instrumentation, electronics, civil) to IT. Although they have been trained in engineering the systems, what they are getting utilized in is - supporting the IT infrastructure. This is not really worth the education our premier institutes are providing.

Shouldn’t there be a restriction on hiring people from cross-functional stream to IT. Isn’t the backbone of development and sustenance, "the industrial development" suffering because of most intellect coming and jumping in the IT bandwagon.

How different will be the IT landscape if normal graduates (without a professional qualification) join the IT industry. Wouldn’t that be prudent? IT companies have mastered the operational art of delivering based on execution expertise, now the only thing they are grappling with is - sustaining margin. Wouldn’t the margins be higher and attrition lower if normal graduates (than engineers) are trained and taken for IT jobs.

I believe in the name of development of economy "ITization of Talent pool" is not only creating a misbalance by skewing the distribution of talent work-force across sectors , but also creating an environment, where sustenance of our economy is highly dependant on the economy of developing nations.

Although we believe we are moving ahead with economy growing at close 8%, we are attributing a lot too much to the new economy IT firms for these developments.

[A fact - Most of the engineering companies these days are grappling with the issue of senior management getting close to retirement. Need is of successors, but where to get them. Most of our intellect from IITs and NITs has been in IT. They are witnessing a shortage of good talent with 1-10 yrs of experience, who can be groomed to take better responsibilities. They are blaming it for IT. But, then, it’s a free market. One who pays more gets the best talent.]