By IANS,
Bangalore : India’s third largest IT bellwether Wipro Ltd Friday opened its first rural back office for providing business process outsourcing (BPO) solutions to global clients in Tiruvarur district of southern Tamil Nadu.
“The 120-seat back office facility has been set up at Manjakkudi on the banks of river Kaveri in partnership with Swami Dayananda Educational Trust, which provides education to the economically backward sections of rural Tamil Nadu,” the global software major said in a statement here.
The site is about 330 km from Chennai.
The company also plans to soon open a 50-seat pilot project for an overseas client in retail space and expand its rural BPO operations to 500 seats in the southern state by March 2013.
Drawn on the “back office to the back office” (BOBO) outsourcing model, the centre will capitalise on the literate talent pool in the region and create employment to the rural youth in the village and surrounding areas.
“Graduate students in the age group of 21-25 will be employed in the facility to deliver a range of services to our customers across industry sectors within the country and overseas,” Wipro BPO global head Manish Dugar said in the statement.
The facility will benefit from a well-equipped IT and physical infrastructure, which complies with standard security and regulatory requirements. It will focus on delivering outsourcing services, while connecting this rural community to the world of global business.
“Based on the success of the pilot project, we intend to replicate the rural back office model in other states across the country in the near future,” Dugar noted.
Though Manjakkudi has a population of 2,500, it was selected in light of huge investments made in education in the region to build 46 colleges where 13,000 students graduate in an academic year.
“Our leadership has been determined to bring opportunity to rural communities through technology. Rural back offices are crucial for the development of our country as a business leader,” Dugar added.
Rural BPOs also enable the educated youth to earn a decent livelihood and avoid migrating to towns and cities in search of similar jobs.