Odisha to have 1,900 seats under BPO scheme

Scheme seeks to generate employment in all small cities, excludes Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Bengaluru and NCR

Odisha will have as many as 1,900 BPO (business processing outsourcing) seats under a Government of India scheme aimed to promote BPO activities in the country.

"The state has been allotted 1,900 seats to be created under the India BPO promotion scheme. The Government of India will reimburse up to 50 per cent of one-time expenditure on admissible items with a cap of Rs one lakh per seat", said an official.

The scheme is aimed at generation of employment in all small cities in the country. However, cities like Hyderabad, Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, Bengaluru and NCR region are excluded from the scheme.

One entrepreneur can bid for a minimum of 100 seats when the request for proposal (RFP) is floated, added the official.

Under the Digital India programme, the Union government has approved the scheme for employment generation and balanced growth of information technology (IT) and ITes (IT enabled services) in each state. It aims at incentivizing establishment of 48300 seats in respect of BPO operations across the country. The department of electronics and information technology (Deity) is likely to implement this scheme through the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI).

The opening of BPOs is likely to give a boost to state IT and ITes sectors as the state government is also planning a similar scheme that will lead to sprouting of BPO centres in the state. The state department for electronics and IT department is also in the process of formulating the guidelines for the scheme at the state level.

Initially 5,000-10,000 seats will be created at the locations where STPI stations are operating. These locations are Bhubaneswar, Balasore, Rourkela and Berhampur.

The proposed scheme will help achieve the employment generation target included 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.

According to reports, Ahmedabad, Kochi, Kolkata and Jaipur along with Bhubaneswar, Cochin, Visakhapatnam, Thiruvananthapuram, Chandigarh and Indore are fast emerging as new destinations for business process management (BPM), a synonym to BPO industry.