The Hindu Business Line : GramIT proposes 7 new BPO units in Andhra Pradesh villages

New Delhi June 13 Ramalinga Raju-promoted Byrraju Foundation's rural BPO initiative — GramIT — is planning to set up new Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) units in seven Andhra villages, generating employment for 700 villagers over the next one year.

"We will be setting up seven more centres, for which we will soon identify the villages. We have already shortlisted some villages," Mr Jacob Verghese, Lead Partner, Byrraju Foundation said on the sidelines a rural ICT seminar organised by Rural Marketing Agencies Association of India and Nasscom Foundation.

GramIT currently has 250 people working in three centres in Jelli Kakinada, Ethakota, KhaziPalam villages in Andhra Pradesh.

GramIT offers employment to educated men and women within their villages. GramIT centres are owned, managed and led by the community, and serve as the back-office for corporates, Government, and other institutions.

Its clients include Satyam, the Andhra Government, and some self- help groups. GramIT now hopes to add 7-8 new clients in the next one year, and is in advanced talks with two companies for sourcing BPO work.

While the Foundation was so far recruiting new graduates, and graduates dependent on agriculture, for its various BPO processes, it is now looking to hire college youth.

Work base

"We are doing transaction processing and voice related work including HR, finance and accounting, database mining and in certain cases, even network support," Mr Verghese said, adding that the revenue-earning potential stood at Rs 10,000-15,000 per person per month against the cost per person of about Rs 8,000-9,000.

"There is a breakeven period of 8-12 months, and we also pay the youth during his training period. The initial losses are borne by the Foundation, and profits that kick-in thereafter from rural BPO initiative are ploughed back into building infrastructure in those villages and also setting similar centres in other villages," he said.

The centres already have six sigma certification, and would now go for ISO 9000 certification as well. "The conformance to Service Level Agreements (SLAs) is already at over 98 per cent in these village centres," he said.

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