BPO industry still needs nurturing

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‘This year and next will be tough for IT & BPO’

: fully developed IT industry, although it has been largely left to survive on its own. Although IT is now strong enough to do so, the BPO industry would be hit really hard by this approach. The BPO Industry rightfully deserves at least 10 more years of fiscal support and benefits… similar to those that were given to the likes of garment and software (IT) exporters for scores of years and are now being denied to the BP industry by clubbing it with the IT industry.

BPO is the only industry that can employ people without fussing too much over conventional yardsticks like education, economic class, location or age. In any other industry, one needs a certain level of education to be “employable”. And not everyone in our country has the luxury of good education, but this should not be a hindrance for a person to earn a livelihood. Of course, there are jobs that do not require a degree per se , but then they require huge investments and infrastructure to employ the otherwise “unemployable”.

Now every village cannot have a manufacturing plant or an IT company, but every village can surely have a BPO. At the very least, all that is required is a few phone connections and/or computers for a rural BPO to be in place. People can carry out voice, typing, accounting and transcription services. They can work on telemarketing in their local dialect, tapping suburban and urban markets; disseminate information on agricultural commodity and fertiliser pricing; send weather alerts; offer agritech, debt and lifestyle counseling and do a lot more than was once done by Krishi Darshan on Doordarshan.

In fact, already tier-II and tier-III cities are becoming hot destinations for BPOs and very soon village or rural BPOs would be a common thing. States like Bihar and Rajasthan have already set up village BPOs. But if they don’t get the kind of support they require, these small entrepreneurs who are investing all their savings and capital in this “emerging business” would be forced to leave the industry like so many others.