The government is mulling to expand the scope of its rural BPO scheme, under which more than 35,000 of the total 48,300 seats have been allotted till now, to encourage greater participation of women, particularly housewives.
“I have directed my department to explore and come out with schemes which allow women to carry out BPO work from home… A group of 100 women can come together and work under one roof,” IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Wednesday. The Minister added that of the 48,300 seats under the BPO Promotion Scheme, as many as 35,160 seats had been allocated after multiple rounds of bidding.
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Viability gap funding
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The scheme provides special incentives up to ₹1 lakh per seat in the form of viability gap funding. “I think it will be completed very early. In six months, it (target) should be complete,” Mr. Prasad said, when asked about the time-frame for allotting all the seats. After four rounds of open bidding, 18,160 seats had been allocated to 109 units of 87 companies across 60 locations (19 States). Of these, 76 units have begun operations on 13,480 seats distributed across 48 locations. This has resulted in initial employment for 10,297 people. In the fifth round that closed in November, 68 companies submitted bids for 17,000 seats. “Approximately, an additional 14,000 seats have been finalised and are being awarded, taking the number of allocated seats to 35,160,” Mr. Prasad said.
Some of the new locations where operations have started under the BPO (business process outsourcing) scheme are Tirupati, Guntupalli, Rajamundry (Andhra Pradesh), Patna and Muzaffarpur (Bihar), Raipur (Chhattisgarh), Baddi and Shimla (Himachal Pradesh), Sagar (Madhya Pradesh), Bhubaneshwar, Cuttack and Jaleshwar (Odisha).