Indian outsourcing companies have long been the darling of employees, investors and even the customers they serve around the world. But the $50 billion industry, the pride of post-liberalisation India, is beginning to feel the heat as a gigantic fraud surfaced in the country’s fourth largest outsourcing firm, Satyam Computer Services.

The consequences of the scam are just beginning to unravel for Satyam’s peers. Shareholders and clients, who suspect that other companies too may hide dark secrets, are posing hard-hitting questions.

The outsourcing industry body Nasscom said it was stepping in to safeguard the impeccable reputation built around the technology and services industry. “We are asking our members to stick with high corporate governance principles and reassure investors and customers,” Nasscom president Ganesh Natarajan said. The body would support Satyam to maintain business continuity for its customers.

Earlier this week, Satyam’s chairman Ramalinga Raju first confessed that he had been inflating company profits and embellishing assets for many years to the tune of billions of rupees, and then resigned. Raju had jolted investors last month when he announced that Satyam proposed to acquire his two sons’ construction companies for a consideration of Rs 8,000 crore.

“After the Satyam shocker, investors have begun

to pose tough questions such as, does Wipro have an unhealthy culture where the management finds itself in a position of having to please a demanding taskmaster with 80 per cent company ownership?” Ashish R. Thadani, senior vice president of research at New York-based Gilford Securities told The Indian Express.

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