The government will soon come out with an incentive scheme for IT companies planning to set up rural BPO centres.
“We're in the final stages of approval for the scheme that will have a capital subsidy and training subsidy component for rural BPOs,” P.W.C. Davidar, IT Secretary, told The Hindu on the sidelines of ‘An Evening with the IT Minister,' an interactive session hosted by CII-NASSCOM with IT Minister Poongothai Aladi Aruna.
The scheme will set a few parameters, including a minimum requirement of 100 jobs, that the companies will have to fulfil in order to be eligible for the benefits, Mr. Davidar said. “The scheme is likely to be formally be rolled out in a week or so.”
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Earlier, addressing the session, Ms. Poongothai Aladi Aruna urged the IT industry to give preference to rural candidates during recruitment. Often, intelligent students from rural background lose out to their urban counterparts during interviews because of the lack of communication skills, she said.
The minister also urged IT companies to increasingly participate in the Tamil Nadu ICT Academy.
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The academy, which was a unique partnership model, had “broken the firewall” of scepticism and cynicism normally associated with public-private partnerships, she said.
Lakshmi Narayanan, vice-chairman, Cognizant, said the academy provided the much-needed platform for the IT industry and academia to work together and address common issues. It was launched in the context of the calls getting louder and louder from industry about the lack of employability of graduates.
Sandhya Chintala, senior director-education initiatives, NASSCOM, said quality, capacity and scale were the key words for companies looking to recruit candidates. R. Nandini, chairperson, CII-Tamil Nadu, said the academy programmes enabled students to take up industry-specific projects.
Sanjay Pinto, Executive Editor, NDTV-Hindu, was moderator.