BPO for visually-challenged comes up in Madurai

Located at IAB campus in Madhurai, it was inaugurated by Justice D Stanley David, Sujoy Bose, Associate VP, south, Amway India

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The Amway Opportunity Foundation (AOF), in partnership with the Indian Association of the Blind (IAB), has set up a business process outsourcing (BPO) unit exclusively for the visually-challenged.

The BPO, located on the IAB campus in Madurai was inaugurated by Justice D Stanley David and Sujoy Bose, associate vice president (South), Amway India & Amway Opportunity Foundation.

Piloted in 2011 by IAB, the project, with a headcount of 15 came into force by acquiring business process from a telecom company.

“In the last couple of years, the visually impaired workforce of the IAB BPO had once again proved their ability without compromising on quality, processes and technology,” said AOF.

The new BPO wing is funded by the AOF, the CSR arm of Amway. The BPO plans to expand to 200 seats in the next one year and aims at providing employment to 60 persons.

In Tamil Nadu, there are as many as 700,000 visually-challenged people across all age groups. Of this, around 8,000 are employed across various sectors, including 2,500 in government, 500 in private and over 5,000 are self employed.

Besides jobs from the government and the public sector including teaching, banking, they are involved in various fields ranging from traditional jobs such weaving, tailoring, chair-canning, candle making, type-writing to the modern day work such as medical transcription, BPO/call centre, basic engineering works, binding and packing, said the company.