UK railway enquiries now to be handled in India

LONDON: The Obama administration in the United States may be taking steps to streamline the outsourcing process, but no such qualms, it seems, exist across the Atlantic in Britain.

The National Rail Enquiries is shunting British call centre jobs to India to save cash, reports The Sun.

Around 70 positions could be outsourced.

The number is run by the Association of Train Operating Companies -- and handles nearly a million calls a month.

Mumbai staff would now handle over 70 per cent of calls, the ATOC said.

Workers at the centre in Wath-upon-Dearne, South Yorks, were told of the news on Thursday.

The ATOC spokesman said nearly Indian workers currently took half of all calls.

He said: "Our monitoring shows levels of customer satisfaction are the same for both the call centres. We can achieve significant savings through this rebalancing and it makes sense to do so."