Odisha mulls rural BPO scheme

Initially 5,000-10,000 seats will be created at the locations where STPI stations are operating

The state IT (information and technology) department is contemplating to come out with a scheme that will lead to sprouting of business process outsourcing (BPO) units in the state.

"The department is in the process of formulating a rural BPO scheme under which the government plans to offer subsidies for creating BPO seats. The IT department has been directed to finalise the scheme in three months," said a government official.

Initially 5,000-10,000 seats will be created at the locations where STPI (Software Technology Parks of India) stations are operating. These locations are Bhubaneswar, Balasore, Rourkela and Berhampur.

The proposed scheme will help achieve the employment generation target espoused in the state ICT (information and communication technology) policy 2014, said the official. The ICT policy aims to create direct employment for 60,000 professionals in 800 IT/ITes/ESDM (electronic system design and manufacturing) units. Official sources said, the central government has sanctioned 1,800 BPO seats for the state under a rural BPO policy. The Union government plans to offer Rs 1 lakh subsidy per seat as capital expenditure for setting up the BPO units in small towns and villages. Nasscom, in a recent report, said that while the Tier I cities continue to be the preferred choices for IT - business process management (BPM), a synonym to BPO industry, there is a paradigm shift towards expansion into peripheral locations and the emergence of alternate delivery locations.

"Emergence of Tier II and III locations as delivery hubs, owing to conducive business environment, relatively lower people costs and attrition rates, lower real estate costs and improvement in infrastructure has led to the emergence of "hub and spoke model" within the country", Nasscom said. According to Nasscom, Ahmadabad, Kochi, Kolkata and Jaipur along with Bhubaneswar, Cochin, Visakhapatnam, Thiruvananthapuram, Chandigarh and Indore are fast emerging as new destinations for BPM.