Youngsters looking to settle abroad, especially the US, courtesy IT industry should opt for career growth within India which offers larger growth opportunities than anywhere else in the world, Infosys mentor N R Narayana Murthy said today.

"Somehow our youngsters have all assumed the idea of joining this industry is to go to US, get there, get an H1B, convert it into green card and settle down there. I think it is a wrong solution, a wrong strategy," he said while addressing a summit here.

Murthy said one expects youngsters to get good salaries and good disposal of income in India, for which they have to get good quality jobs here.

"But their objective cannot be to go and settle down in some other country, especially the US."

"This time you have a great opportunity to consolidate and by working in India, by becoming a good quality professional you will sustain the advantage we have created and will make growth in India a permanent rather than a temporary feature."

On wooing back Indian talent, Murthy said there was no need to increase their salaries by 50 times to ensure this.

But their lives could be made easier by providing schools, making sure that power condition and commuting is reasonably all right.

"This is being done by many countries in the world.

This is nothing new. This is not rocket science," he said, adding there must also be attempts to ensure that the facilities are enhanced.

"I think all state governments must make an attempt to say we will allow as many English medium schools as required because if you do not do so, then the children will not be able to move from one state to another."

Job opportunities available to children who go to English medium schools generally are seen to be of a higher quality and is a reality whether one likes it or not, he said.

To get these section back, the combination of financial income coupled with comfort of living in India and with the family should be higher than the financial income and discomfort living abroad, he said.

When asked what his priorities would be if his name was proposed for the President's post, Murthy said: "In a parliamentary democracy like India, President is a ceremonial post. That is the reality."

Murthy said that as per estimates, IT industry had the potential of growing to USD 300bn industry from the current 50 USD.

The incremental opportunities for the industry would be in areas like public sector and governance, genomics, cloud computing and digital economy.

However, all this would throw up the challenge of procuring the required talent in the right numbers. He said India would need 6-7 million professionals.

"To get seven million people is not going to be easy", given the fact that India is one of the fastest growing economies that would require engineers to develop roads, power and other infrastructure, he said.

Scaling up the number of engineering intake in the country is the key to ensure that there are sufficient people to add value to the industry.

"This would have to come from reforms in the education sector and creating brand equities for companies in India", he said, adding that Indian companies would have build credibility in the global market to attract talent.

"Unless we create brand equity it will not happen", he said.

Apart from traditional sectors like application development and package implementation that contribute towards major chunk of revenues, infrastructure management services, product life cycle, retail and health care are other areas with growing opportunities, he said.

Going forward, there would also be a need to leverage expertise of professional experts like doctors and lawyers, he opined.

To a question on if the IT Industry was continuing to get the talent cream, he said the principles of free market worked anywhere and youngsters were bound to go where the returns are higher.

On the rural BPO sector, he said "Rural BPOs will play an important role in employment", given the fact that rural customers need communication in local languages by those who understand them. "This will be important with most corporations looking at the bottom of the pyramid."

The opportunities of rural BPOs also were more given e-governance, including access to land records and motor licensing.