Nasscom upset at private snoops on IT workers

BANGALORE: Hiring of private agencies by BPO and IT companies to carry out background checks on their employees in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks has not gone down well with the apex industry body Nasscom.

Calling the move unnecessary, Nasscom chairman Ganesh Natarajan said the National Skills Registry (NSR) maintained by it could be effectively used for the purpose with sufficient upgrades. DNA had reported on Wednesday that BPO and IT companies, among others, were hiring private detectives and security agencies to verify the antecedents of their employees.

“I don’t think employing private groups to carry out background checks is required,” Natarajan told DNA. The NSR, though meant for weeding out resumé cheats, is 90% foolproof and can be effectively used for this purpose, he said.

Though set up in December 2005, only 3.5 lakh of the roughly 20 lakh IT professionals have registered on the NSR.  

It costs companies Rs3,000 to get one employee registered on the NSR.

According to R Karthik Shekhar, founder of the Union for ITITES (Unites), said ITITES companies were reluctant to use the NSR. “But I don’t see any reason why they should not use it for background checks,” he said.

Over the next year, Natarajan said he expected 5-6 lakh new registrations to be added to the NSR, which is managed by NSDL Database Management Ltd (NMDL), a fully owned subsidiary of the National Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL).

Asked if it should be made mandatory for every company to register its employees on the NSR, Natarajan said he would go a step ahead and push for compulsory NSR registration for every engineering student. “There is a strong case for every engineering college to register its students on the database, which is very stringent and carries out fingerprint and other checks on people registered,” he said.

Taking the idea ahead, Nasscom was in touch with police and municipal departments in cities like Pune, where a Punekar Card, on the lines of a national social security card, is being contemplated, he said. The NSR could be linked to such systems to cross-check employee backgrounds.