Few takers for government bid to turn Northeast India into BPO hub

NEW DELHI: The Centre’s bid to develop Northeast India as a hub for business process outsourcing by offering subsidies for setting up call centres in various locations across the region has failed to find any takers among national players.

The initiative received just one proposal, from Kolkata-based IKF Technologies, for a 300-seat centre, while the target was 5,000 seats. This has prompted the government to ease norms further and release a fresh policy document.

Industry players, however, are still not keen. “There is no business that wants to go there, it is too much of a risk,” said Kanwar B Singh, vice president, operations, at Serco Global Services.

While the government is ready to subsidise up to Rs 1 lakh per seat, it still does not make economic sense to invest in the region, he said. “It (North East) has a good pool of English speaking people but the pain of setting up a centre there takes away those gains,” Singh said.

Sanjay Mehta, managing director of Teleperformance India, said it is a BPO company’s clients that take the call on the location and very few will want their operations to be serviced out of North East due to “security and safety issues, connectivity of travel, perception of North East despite the unparalleled talent available there”.