Providing a breather to Indian IT companies, a bill in the US state of New Jersey  proposing to ban government outsourcing contracts to foreign countries has been put on hold due to differences of opinion between the members of a committee examining the bill and the senator who moved it, according to the apex software association Nasscom.

The bill after being introduced in the state assembly was referred to the committee last December and at which stage, Nasscom took the initiative to convince the members about the benefits of outsourcing.

According to Nasscom president Kiran Karnik, among other things, the inputs provided by Nasscom to the members of the Assembly State Government Committee directly or indirectly, convinced them about the benefits of outsourcing to other countries as a matter of cost-cutting.

"However, Senator Shirley K Turner, who had moved the bill, still has to be convinced about the rewording and redrafting of the original bill that would do away with words like outsourcing and India," Karnik said.

The bill has been put on hold till the required changes are carried out, he said.

If the bill is not taken up during the current session, which lasts till March 17, it would most likely be taken up in the next session starting end-May, he said.