The Hindu Business Line : BPO industry says all measures in place to ensure employee safety

New Delhi, Jan 31 Even as a BPO head faces prosecution for allegedly violating night shift norms, the industry today said it was taking all possible measures to ensure safety for women employees on night shift, including installation of GPS system on pick-up vehicles and conducting background checks on cab drivers. However, the industry feels that the Government and industry can work jointly to evolve broad set of guidelines for tighter security measures.

“The industry is already taking all measures to ensure safety of its employees. However, in the backdrop of this tragic incident, we will look at operations even more closely now and see if any additional steps can be taken. I also feel that the Government jointly with the industry should define ‘adequate safety measures’,” Mr Pramod Bhasin, President and CEO of Genpact, said.

SC ruling

Yesterday, the Supreme Court dismissed the plea of Mr Som Mittal (former head of Hewlett Packard Global Soft Ltd), seeking quashing of an FIR lodged by police accusing his company of allegedly violating a 2002 order of the Karnataka Government that prohibited night shift for women. He now faces prosecution for allegedly failing to provide adequate security and transport to one of the firm’s employees who was raped and killed by the driver of the pick-up car in December 2005.

In a statement issued through Nasscom, Mr Mittal - who took charge as the software association’s new President in January this year - said, “I have not yet seen the judgment of the Supreme Court on the case regarding the unfortunate murder of an employee of HP Global Soft in 2005 and, therefore, cannot comment on it. We have full faith in the Indian judicial system, which is acknowledged to be fair and independent.”

Nasscom move

Meanwhile, Nasscom said it was making all efforts to continuously review and further strengthen the processes that ensure the safety of all employees in the industry. “While the number of unfortunate incidents involving IT-BPO employees have been proportionately far less than those affecting other citizens, for us, even a single incident is one too many,” Nasscom said.

According to Mr Raman Roy, Chairman and Managing Director of Quatrro, “Employee safety has been paramount for us. Quatrro vehicles have GPS installed in them and we monitor their movement at all points of time. We also test our drivers to ensure they are not drunk and if any driver is found in an inebriated condition, we will not hesitate to cancel the entire contract.”

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