On 4 June, the Minister of Electronics and Information Technology,
Mr
Ravi Shankar Prasad inaugurated two BPOs (Business Process
Outsourcing) in Ranchi, Jharkhand and announced that seven more call centres
will by established by September (five in the state capital and one each in
Dhanbad and Deoghar), under the IN ₹483-crores (around US $72,063,600)
India BPO Promotion
Scheme (IBPS).
BPO is the contracting of a business process to a third party
service provider. BPOs in India include outsourcing in several fields and are
the fastest
growing segment of the ITES (Information Technology Enabled Services) industry
in terms of both production and export.
A BPO service provider will usually administer and manage a
specific business process for another company. With the use of either existing
technology or new technology, BPOs try to improve a particular business task. Indian
BPOs provide a number of IT-related services such as customer support,
technical support, creative design, finance and accounting services, insurance
and data processing, internet research etc.
As most companies in the US and UK outsource IT-related business
processes to Indian service providers, India
is currently the number one destination for business process outsourcing.
The IBPS was initiated
under Indian Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi’s Digital India initiative.
The aim of the project, according to the Minister of IT, is to generate
employment for the local youth in smaller, more remote villages and to attract
investments in these areas for digital development, as well as their overall growth.
The two BPOs that were set up on 4 June, Rtika Printech Private Limited at
Kadru and Sri
Publication & Stationers Private Limited at Ashok Nagar, will
initially hire 50 people each and gradually increase that number to 150.
Mr Ravi Prasad
tweeted, “Inaugurated two BPO centres in
Ranchi. These BPOs have been set up by local entrepreneurs availing the
incentives under India BPO Promotion Scheme of Government of India. It was
great to see the enthusiasm of boys and girls from different parts of Jharkhand
who got jobs in these BPOs.”
Under the scheme, 48,300 BPOs are expected to be established in
the country, this will create jobs for approximately 450,000 people. According
to Mr Ravi Prasad, women and differently-abled people will be given priority
during recruitments. He also stated the IBPS has already set up 91 BPOs in 88
cities and towns.
The Digital India scheme has provided around 1,210,000,000 people with a unique biometric identifier (Aadhaar)
and approximately 450,000,000 people have smart phones. While addressing the
management of the Ashok Nagar BPO (Sri Publication & Stationers Private
Limited) after its inauguration, Mr Ravi Prasad said, “Your smart phone is your
portable computer and Aadhaar number an authentic identity proof. Maximise the
use of IT for positive growth."
The IBPS has the potential to create around 150,000 jobs for
people in rural India.