BRAIN DRAIN

          Brain drain was a serious problem that India faced till a few years ago. Thousands of trained engineers, doctors and technicians left the country every year for better jobs and facilities abroad. The huge amount of money spent on their education and training went down the drain and the country lost valuable manpower that could be of immense use to its people. There is still a problem of brain drain faced by India with highly trained and qualified people in information technology go abroad every year for better prospects.

         By and large, the problem of brain drain has been minimized now with the availability of better facilities, salaries and career prospects for the trained personnel available within the country itself. Very few people go abroad in search of greener pastures as their requirements are met in India itself. In fact, a sort of reverse brain drain has started. Many foreign experts in various fields come to seek employment in India. Moreover, many Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) who left India years ago to earn money in foreign countries are coming back to their motherland. They are setting up new enterprises through which their expertise is available to us.

         Added to this phenomenon is the process of outsourcing of business by advanced nations such as the United States and England to India. They find the personnel here better qualified and, of course, cheaper than the ones available at home to meet their business requirements. That explains the setting up of call centre’s in our metropolitan cities where foreign clients have an easy access to whatever information they require from the local railway and air timetable to medical expertise as well as information of a highly specialized nature-just a telephone call away. Such call centres are doing an invaluable service to the business organizations as well as their clients and to the country at large by bringing in valuable foreign exchange. In fact, it has now become brain drain in reverse. And there are loud protests in advanced countries about such a reversal.

         India has the second largest trained manpower in the world in China and has today become a global destination for business outsourcing. This is a tribute to the facilities and training available here. If the present trend continues, the emigration of highly qualified and trained people from India to other countries will soon become a thing of the past.