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Outsourcing jobs being done at a BPO firm in a village in Krishnagiri district in Tamil Nadu

T.E. Raja Simhan

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Krishnagiri (TN), June 15 Padma, 22, a first time earner from an agricultural family, proudly displays her TVS Scooty. Her colleague Vijay, 25, is the breadwinner for a five-member family which owns five buffalos. Each earns about Rs 5,000 a month, working for Fostera (Fostering Technologies in Rural Areas), rural business process outsourcing (BPO) initiative in Krishnagiri district.

Both Padma and Vijay, trained in typing, do data processing work and insurance form filling for All State Insurance of the US. Data is sent by the company to Fostera by e-mail. The e-mail is transcripted, data is filled up in the form and sent back to the insurance company by e-mail, said Mr M.R. Ashok Kumar, Chief Executive Officer, Fostera.

Fostera is also involved in police data management work for Krishangiri district, government ration work and base survey work for the Karnataka Government, he said.

Some of the villages in Krishnagiri were once known for their Naxalite activities. Today, the BPO initiative under Fostera is changing the landscape of this district, located 100 km from Bangalore.

Representatives from companies such as Wipro, Syntel, Hewlett-Packard, Cognizant, HOV Services and US Technology were here, as part of a Nasscom delegation, to get a feel of the BPO operations.

“It is amazing to see the work done by a student who could not pass the tenth standard doing work for a US company,” said Mr N.NR. Sharavanan, General Manager and Head, Administration, Syntel, a US-based IT and high-end BPO company. “We are exploring how the Fostera model can be replicated in our company,” he told Business Line.

The brainchild of the District Collector, Dr Santhosh Babu, Fostera provides employment to nearly 200 youth coming from the below-poverty-line families from local villages. The district administration has set up such BPO centres in four villages, including Chanachadiran and Allapatti.

“I was initially sceptical about the whole model. But, today I can say that Fostera can be replicated across the country,” Dr Babu said. The only constraint is the broadband connectivity. There is a plan to introduce WiMax to take the broadband connectivity to every village, he said.

Adventity, a knowledge and BPO firm, on Saturday signed an agreement with Fostera . On a pilot basis, Adventity will employ 100 people immediately and is likely to increase it to 1,000 in two years, Mr Kumar Subramanian, Chief Executive Officer, Adventity BPO India.

Fostera will provide infrastructure and Adventity end-to-end training of people for the pilot batch of hires.

More Stories on : Outsourcing | Human Resources | Rural Development

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