India's English-speaking population has helped fuel its growing economy. However, only a fraction of the country's billion-plus people are fluent in the language. Now, amid an economic boom, tens of thousands of people are trying to learn English, in the hope of climbing the economic as well as social ladder. Anjana Pasricha has a report from New Delhi.

Weekend crowds at 27th India International Trade Fair in New Delhi, 18 Nov 2007

After she got married, Munesh Yadav, came to live in Delhi. But she encountered a problem: her husband's friends spoke English and she did not know the language.

"I came from Alwar and there was no need to English. So I could not speak anything. And, when I used to go somewhere, I felt very bad. So my husband also said to me that 'you should go somewhere to learn English,'" she said.

Twenty-two-year-old Brashpal Singh has come to Delhi from another small town, in the hope of pursuing a postgraduate course in business administration. But his lack of knowledge of English is putting a brake on his ambitions. He is unable to make his presence felt in grueling group discussions held to select students.

"Some, some, some sentence I don't understand. So I don't discuss them, and English is not very good, so I don't, I don't answer of them. But I have more knowledge for them, if I speak in Hindi, so I was best," he said.

Both Yadav and Singh have enrolled at an institute in Delhi which teaches English.

They are among thousands of young Indians flocking to join academies which have mushroomed in big and small cities to improve proficiency in English.

Some of these youngsters aspire to enroll at colleges where studies are conducted in English. Others want to get jobs in a flourishing economy that has opened up new opportunities. Still others want to be familiar with the language spoken in the drawing rooms of the upper middle class.

Millions of people in India speak fluent English and have given the country a huge competitive advantage in a globalized economy. But it is estimated that they add up to just five percent of the population.

Now, the others want to catch up.

Six years ago, Vikram Bajaj opened the Inlingua institute, in a central Delhi area, to teach English. Bajaj says corporate India is dominated by English-speaking people.

"The talk really in boardrooms and in the senior management is in English. And, that naturally sets the tone down the line. Everyone is expected to conform to that by making presentations in English, by writing e-mails and letters in English. And, of course, the bigger reality being that with globalization the customer today is international. He is not an Indian," said Bajaj.