Andhra Pradesh first state to exhaust rural BPO quota

The state was allotted 2,200 seats under the India BPO promotion scheme

Andhra Pradesh has emerged as the first state in the country to exhaust all the seats allocated to it under the India BPO promotion scheme (IBPS) for setting up business process outsourcing (BPO) units in rural areas.

The state was allotted 2,200 seats under the scheme, but with the rising demand from companies to create more seats an additional 850 have been allocated.

“The initial seats allotted to Andhra Pradesh have already been filled up. The response has been quite good. There is provision for over allocation in the scheme ,” said a senior official of Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), the nodal agency for implementing the scheme.

The target under the scheme is to create 48,300 BPO seats across states and Union territories (UTs) based on population percentage according to Census 2011. Metro cities such as Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, National Capital Region (NCR), and Pune, along with their urban agglomeration were excluded. Of the total seats to be created, 18,160 allocations have been made in the country, according to the project’s official website.

The central government had approved IBPS under the Digital India Programme to create 150,000 employment opportunities and promotion of BPO/ITes operations across the country, to secure balanced regional growth of the industry, with an outlay of Rs 493 crore.

The scheme provides capital support along with special incentives up to Rs 1 lakh in the form of viability gap funding (VGF). About 15 companies have proposed to set up BPO centres in Andhra Pradesh, including Karvy Data Management Services and Omega Healthcare.

Apart from Andhra Pradesh, the response in Tamil Nadu has also been satisfactory. Against 2,800 seats earmarked for Tamil Nadu, only 100 seats were left to be allocated, added the official. In the UT category, Chandigarh and Puducherry have exhausted all seats allotted to them. Chandigarh and Puducherry were given 100 seats each.

Uttar Pradesh, the largest state by population, was allotted 8,800 seats under the scheme and 2,830 seats have been allocated to the companies, according to the latest available figure. The response in states such as Jharkhand, Gujarat, and West Bengal has been very poor. Similarly, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, Lakshadweep, Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Goa are yet to open their account.

Recently, IT major TCS started a 1,000-seater BPO centre under the scheme at Patna.