Managing director of Just Dial VSS Mani. Picture by Bhola Prasad

Jamshedpur, Aug. 31: Just Dial, the country’s largest local search engine, would soon set up a call centre in the steel city.

Managing director of Just Dial V.S.S. Mani told The Telegraph that the company is looking for a suitable site in Jamshedpur to set up the domestic call centre.

“Necessary logistics are being worked out. We would soon approach the state government and East Singhbhum administration to allot us a land for establishing the call centre. With many corporate bigwigs like Tata Steel operating in the steel city, we found the city ideal for business,” said Mani.

Mani said the call center at the steel city would be a massive project.

“It would have state-of-the-art infrastructure. Large number of manpower would be employed. In fact, we might also take a decision to wind-up a few national call centres presently operational at other parts of the country and divert the traffic at the proposed call centre in Jamshedpur,” he said.

Presently, Just Dial has call centres at New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Calcutta and Pune. The call centre at the steel city will be the ninth in the series.

“Just Dial have received a good response from this part of the country within a short span of time. I am very happy with the success,” said the managing director.

Mani, who was born here, said he has close affinity with the place. This is one of the reason why he wants to come up with a call centre here. His grandmother and maternal uncle stays in Jamshedpur and Mani was in the steel city to visit them.

Mani has come a long way. Starting with just Rs 50,000 in 1994, he has, over the years ,built a business with an annual turnover of Rs 100 crore and a valuation in excess of Rs 500 crore.

Brought up in Calcutta, he studied to be a chartered accountant. In search of job, Mani left for Delhi. He worked at a directory firm that was selling listings in the Yellow Pages.

In 1987 and the concept was relatively new in the country.

While working in the company he got the idea of starting a service where people could just dial in and receive information 24X7 on any product or service.

Thus, Just Dial, came into being. It helps a person to seek information on almost everything like a neighbourhood drug store to the best kebab corner in town by simply dialling a number.

And what made it a hit, was the amenity that allowed a caller to get information immediately and it was toll free. With over 1.25 crore customers across the country, Mani said that he is now eyeing the US and Canada markets where he want to set up something similar to Just Dial. The local search engine was launched in the steel city last year.