Apart from US-based Future Kids International, which set up base in the country several months ago through a tie-up with the Muthaiah family in Chennai, there are at least half-a-dozen others looking to start operations soon. The US-based Fourth R, through a tie-up with the Dugar Finance group, the Canadian Techno Kids Inc, Wizz Kids Inc, Planet 2000, Cyber Kids and IT Kids from the Indchem group are just a few other chains looking for a piece of the market which is estimated at a whooping Rs 10,000 crore per annum.

"The opportunity is too tempting to miss out, which explains the entry of so many players in the market," says Abhinav Dhar, head, NIIT Leda. It is now or never, he says.

Leda has woken up to the fact that the new competition on thehorizon has taken off its kids gloves to unleash an aggressive campaign to expand its base in the country before the foreign invasion takes over the turf.

The pioneer in computer education in the country is looking at expanding the number of franchises from the present 57 in five cities to 250 in the metros and other second run cities by the end of September this year and targeted 500 by the end of the year 2000.

If the expansion frenzy by NIIT reflects concern, it may not be misplaced considering the size of the new entrants. Future Kids, with a presence in over 70 countries and 2000 locations, is perhaps the biggest threat, while Fourth R with its mega-bucks and presence in 36 countries is another danger.

Techno Kids, though, is present in only 12 countries and has started in right earnest. It has been concentrating on the second rung cities.

All give the same kind of channels as NIIT Leda with emphasis on neighbourhood learning centres, school teaching solutions and special interest groups, thoughthe basic difference is that Leda is the only one to give a school curriculum-oriented teaching while all others are concentrating on familiarising the kids to technology.

"Understandably, companies are taking the easy way in by stressing on the technology aspect, while the software has to match with the curriculum," says Dhar. If the software is not matched with the curriculum and Indianised, it would be a gross underleveraging of the technology, feels Dhar who has over 200 hours of in-house software on offer.

However, Kesava Subramanyam of Techno Kids disagrees. "The question of Indianising the syllabus does not arise," he says. After all, we are preparing our children for the globalised scenario and in that respect school curriculum is not the immediate concern, he adds.

"Making kids IT literate is the idea of launching our company," says V Suresh Kumar of IT Kids. Curriculum is not necessarily the focus and any improvement in school grades is only incidental, chips in his colleague V Narayan. Weplan to open up 50 centres by the end of the year, he adds.

While Dhar denies there would be a price war in the market, content will perhaps decide survival, he feels. Though this might indicate a shake-out a few years down the line, competition from an altogether unexpected quarter could emerge in the shape of "hi-tech tuition centres" cropping up all over.

High cost of franchise, heavy overheads on maintaining a big brand, coupled with high fees, will drive people to open their own mom-and-pop teaching shops, says a Leda franchisee who has gone solo. And with a catchment area of just around 3 km, that could well be the future course despite the big noise from the corporate teaching shops, he feels.