Stating India’s contribution towards IT industry’s growth is well acknowledged across the globe, Minister for Electronic, IT, Law and Justice Ravi Shankar Prasad today said electronic and IT will shape new India in the days to come, where all services will be made available on doorstep throughout the country.
While inaugurating Networking workshop on India BPO promotion scheme, Mr Prasad said Narendra Modi’s government is determined to create a knowledge based society to improve efficiency and reach of the services.
During last fiscal IT & IT enabled services earned the highest ever revenue of 143 billion dollars which is around 9.3 per cent of GDP in India. In the same period, the sector also recorded an export of 108 billion dollars which is around 45 per cent of services export from India, he added.
The sector gave direct employment to 3.7 million people and last year alone two lakh additional employment were created. On prospect of BPO industry, the minister said India holds 38 per cent share in global BPO industry and stage is set for massive growth of the sector. With increased focus of the government on good governance and impetus of the industry towards better customer services, the need for call centers will increase.
Further, he added country is gradually moving towards a citizen oriented e-governance model, which will be based on reduced physical interface with the government office, the needs for effective citizen support would be required. This demand can be met by the call centres. Moreover, running BPO operations in big cities has become expensive due to rising cost of real estate and other essential amenities, Mr Prasad said.
To mitigate this cost factor, the BPO industry should move to small towns where these overheads are lesser. According to some estimate, if the BPO industry moves to smaller towns it will save around 10-25 per cent of the costs. Speaking on the occasion, PP Chaudhary, Minister of State for Electronics and IT pointed out that BPO industry must prepare itself to take up additional responsibilities that will arise because of new initiative being taken in tax system, health & e-commerce.
By EB Bureau
