The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has plans to fill 53,300 seats in BPO companies across the country.
In order to create jobs in the smaller towns across the country, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has launched the India BPO Promotion and the North East BPO Promotion schemes, and, according to the ministry’s data, the bidding process by BPO companies to fill seats in their firms has been a big success till now.
The BPO promotion schemes are part of the Narendra Modi government’s Digital India programme. Under the schemes, the MeitY has plans to fill 53,300 seats in BPO companies across the country. This will generate almost 150,000 jobs for the youths in smaller towns.
The MeitY has allocated an outlay of Rs 542 crore to incentivise BPO/ITES operations in smaller towns across the country. The ministry provides financial support of up to Rs 1 lakh/seat in the form of Viability Gap Funding (VGF) to the employer. Under the BPO promotion schemes, the MeitY provides 50% funds required for setting up a BPO in a small town.
According to the ministry’s data, until the last round of bidding completed in November last year, 66% seats, accounting for a total of 36,300 seats, have already been filled. The India BPO Promotion scheme has seen six rounds of bidding till now, while the North East BPO Promotion scheme has seen nine rounds of bidding.
The total number of seats filled till now will provide jobs to approximately 1 lakh individuals. The remaining 16,700 seats are up for grabs across the country in 27 states and Union Territories, for companies working in the BPO sector. A senior MeitY official told The Sunday Guardian: “The operation of the BPO promotion schemes is to generate jobs in smaller towns. For example, if you have 1,000 seats in your BPO and you run it in three shifts, then you will be able to provide jobs to 3,000 people and, in this scenario, the MeitY will compensate you with 10% extra incentive, besides 50% of capital support.”
“Also, due to rising expenditure and demands for increased salaries in the big cities, many BPOs have already started shifting their voice processes to the cheaper countries. To check this shift, the MeitY came up with these schemes to promote the BPO sector in small towns across the country,” the same official cited earlier said. “Anyone willing to open a BPO in a small town should have a company registered under the Companies Act with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA). Apart from this, anybody can also apply for BPO operations in the partnership mode, but in this case, the company needs to have three years of proof of expertise to get funding support from the MeitY,” the official added.
Some of the smaller towns where BPOs have opened or will open in the future include Rajahmudry in Andhra Pradesh, Patna and Muzaffarpur in Bihar, Raipur in Chhattisgarh, Baddi and Shimla in Himachal Pradesh, Sagar in Madhya Pradesh, Jaleshwar in Odisha, Kottakuppam, Tiruchirappalli, Tiruppattur in Tamil Nadu, Karimnagar in Telangana, Bhaderwah, Budgam, Jammu, Sopore and Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir, Aurangabad, Bhiwandi, Sangli and Wardha in Maharashtra, and Bareilly, Kanpur and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh.