NEW DELHI - Shiv Nadar-promoted HCL Infosystems has emerged as the best employer in the Indian information technology industry, followed by iGate, Rolta, RMSI and SAS Institute, says a survey by Dataquest magazine and International Data Corp.

HCL rose two positions from last year, while iGate slipped one notch to number two, according to the "Best Employers Survey 2009″ that covered 200 IT companies in India, out of which 31 were short-listed for the final round.

"Seven new entrants made it to the top 20 - R Systems (6), Perot Systems (7), Ingram Micro (11), Sify Technologies (13), Infogain (17), Unisys (18) and Novell (19)," a statement on the survey said.

Commissioned by niche publishing house CyberMedia, the survey said a number of Indian and multinational companies also resorted to lay-offs and realignment of compensation as a business necessity.

"This knee-jerk reaction led to negative media fallout and triggered a dip in morale of information technology professionals," the survey said.

"Sensing this sentiment, the top four companies declined to take part in the survey for the first time, citing confidentiality. These top four IT firms employ about 40 percent of the IT professionals in the country."

Another interesting finding of the survey was a 15 percent drop in the attrition rates from 18 percent last year. But the average salary hikes also declined to a mere 1.4 percent. Hexaware showed a remarkable retention of 100 percent.

"The drop in the average attrition rate is not surprising in a year when the IT companies had taken the scissors out to trim flab, non-performing employees and do away with the bench," said Ibrahim Ahmed, group editor of Dataquest.

"Companies are becoming increasingly responsive to the employee issues. But they appeared conservative in allowing their employees in taking risks," Ahmed said, reflecting on the reasons to shy away from trying new ideas.