Lukewarm response for BPO seats from Bengal: STPI

The BPO promotion scheme floated by Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) to create seats in smaller towns has received muted response from West Bengal, an official said.
"Out of the 3400-odd seats allotted for West Bengal, only 200 seats have been booked", additional director of STPI Manjit Nayak said.
The scheme was under the government's Start-Up Mission with the view to promote job opportunities in smaller towns and cities across the country.
A total of around 48,000 BPO seats had been alloted for the country, except the north-east region. The north-eastern states were given a total of 5,000 seats.

"A major cause for the poor response from West Bengal could be that people were not willing to migrate to the smaller towns leaving the metropolis", Nayak said.
But efforts were on to meet the target, he told reporters on the sidelines of an event here today.

The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) under the commerce ministry had received around 4500 applications for start-ups out of which 74 got recognition for getting tax benefits, he said.
The government was also pushing for promoting start-ups in diverse fields like healthcare and e-commerce, he said.
In 2016-17, software exports from India stood at USD 117 billion, he said.