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BANGALORE, March 6

MR Phaneesh Murthy, co-founder of Primentor Inc and former worldwide sales head of Infosys Technologies, has termed the New Jersey Bill to bar outsourcing of business process outsourcing operations from State enterprises to countries outside as ``extremely regressive'', but pointed that Indian companies are getting ``paranoid'' on this issue.

"The US is respected mainly because of its free market. The New Jersey bill leaves a bad taste and is regressive," Mr Murthy told presspersons here today. "But we are also trying to create a sense of paranoia," he said, adding that the US corporates which work on a free market principle were unlikely to allow the Government to pass any law.

On the proposed move to bring a similar Bill in Washington State, Mr Murthy said it was due to lobbying from Washington State Technology Establishment (Washtest), a workers union controlled by contractors for IT firms.

He said the reasons cited by Washtest to seek a ban even from private companies was ``emotional and had little base''.

Mr Murthy said he would be surprised if the Bill were passed as there were bound to be protests from US private enterprises against any law that would restrict their work.

He said this was the first time Indian IT firms had started realising that ``replacing jobs'' in the West would give rise to concerns there. In 2002, nearly 82 per cent of the jobs in the US were in the services sector as against 45 per cent in 1960. Of this 82 per cent, nearly 60 per cent of them were local jobs, while the remaining 40 per cent of them were at risk of being outsourced. Hence, the furore and negative sentiment in US over outsourcing, he said.

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