"The idea is to generate awareness among our members and students to use only legalised software. We have to make a positive beginning since we train a significant portion of the manpower reaching various institutions," NACT president Suresh G Bharwani said.

NACT has set up a taskforce to negotiate with software majors like Microsoft, Oracle, SCO and Unix for providing software to the institutes at concessional rates. "We have reached agreements with Adobe, Autodesk and Corel Corporation for multi-media and graphic packages," Bharwani said. Any deal with Microsoft would be highly important, he said, since the company dominates the training market with products across the spectrum of computer applications and operations.

As per the deal with Adobe, the company will provide one software package with two extra licences to the institutes at a rate of Rs 15,000 against the retail price of Rs 39,000. NACT will distribute these to institutes at Rs 3,000. Corel will give its Rs 20,000 package to NACT at Rs 5,000. The package will be distributed at Rs 1,400.

Software piracy is widespread in India and China. Almost 90 per cent of the software used in the country is pirated and large corporate houses have often been accused of perpetrating it. Any infringement of copyright will carry a punishment of seven days imprisonment and a fine of Rs 50,000. "The needs of institutes are different from those of the commercial users. On an average we spend around Rs 5 lakh to buy software, whereas commercial users multiply the software and use it for a number purposes. That's why we advocate liberal attitude on the part of companies towards us," Bharwani said.

Commenting on the issue, Vijay Sampath of Zee Education said the high cost of software was one apparent reason for the piracy in the country. "I feel that some steps must be taken to drive down high prices," he said. "This will be important in the context of the country's drive towards becoming an infotech superpower. From the training institutes' point view, a reduction in cost of software is very important since it would cut down the cost of computer education" he said.