Satyam,slowdown make 2009 hard for IT industry

The scam tarnished the credibility of India’s IT story,requiring others to do a lot of convincing to retain clients.

As dramatic it was,the World Bank,within a week of the Satyam scam coming to light,announced it had banned,besides Satyam,Wipro and Megasoft from working for it for allegedly “providing improper benefits to the Bank staff” during the course of their projects with it. While the cases dated back to mid-2007,the timing of the disclosures only helped compound the woes of the IT industry.

To give the government its due credit,it acted swiftly by superseding the Satyam Board,which brought in new auditors to restate accounts,and ascertained employee count and within months found a new owner in Tech Mahindra. Satyam has since been renamed Mahindra Satyam.

Multiple agencies probed the scam,whose size was initially estimated at Rs 7,800 crore,and Raju,once a celebrated IT icon,is in custody awaiting trial.