Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the country's top information technology company, on Thursday opened a 1,000-seat business process outsourcing (BPO) centre in Patna, with the promise of 3,000 direct and thousands of indirect job opportunities.
The setting up of a TCS centre in Patna is also seen as an attempt by the Union government to move BPOs from Tier-I cities to Tier II and III cities where costs are much less, and also to provide employment opportunities beyond the top metros.
Under the Indian BPO Promotion Scheme (IBPS), such centres will be set up in Muzaffarpur, Dalsinghsarai (Samastipur) and Patna City too.
Union minister for law & justice and information technology (IT) Ravi Shankar Prasad inaugurated the centre.
The TCS centre in Patna, being the largest BPO set up in Bihar-Jharkhand under the under the BPO promotion scheme, would create nearly 3,000 direct jobs as the centre will work round-the-clock in three shifts.
Under the BPO promotion scheme, the Union IT department has set a target to create 48,300 seats, which will be divided according to the population of state. Uttar Pradesh, being most populous state, will get 8,000 seats, Bihar 4,600 and Madhya Pradesh 3,200 among others. Of 4,600 allocated seats for Bihar, 1,910 seats have already been allotted.
Ravi Shankar, while inaugurating the BPO, said: "Whenever I visited Bangalore, Pune and Hyderabad, I met youths from Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh working in these BPOs. They used to demand the setting up of BPOs in their home state, where they could get jobs.
"The TCS BPO centre here is just starting. Many more companies will follow suit."
TCS chief executive officer and managing director Rajesh Gopinathan said: "The launch of the new centre in Patna is aligned with the government's ambitious IBPS and is aimed at creating new jobs and taking the IT revolution beyond the metros."
A senior official at TCS, who is not authorised to speak to the media, said: "The TCS is conducting interviews for recruitment of freshers. However, as per the plan, local candidates will be given preference at the centre."
Sources said the candidates will get a monthly salary of Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000. Though the centre will take a few weeks to start operations, many youths had turned up at the event seeking employment information.
Niraj Kamal, a BCA degree holder who attended the event, said: "When I came to know that TCS is opening its centre in Patna, I came over to seek details - how can one apply and the eligibility criteria."
Sources said the TCS Patna centre is already providing IT services to the government as well as the private sector.
Reshmi, an engineering graduate from Uttaranchal Institute of Technology (Dehradun) and a native of Aurangabad who works at TCS Patna, said: "As the company is providing IT services to government as well as private sectors, many people are working but with the opening up of TCS BPO centre, the workforce strength will go up."
The TCS centre inauguration was, however, marked by controversy.
State IT minister Ashok Choudhary, who was invited for the function, didn't turn up at the event.
Both Ravi Shankar and BJP leader Nand Kishore Yadav, present at the function, attacked Choudhary for not attending the event.
Nand Kishore said: "The state government should not have mixed politics with such a important event. The opening of this TCS centre is a big initiative, as around 3,000 youths will get direct employment and thousands more will get indirect job opportunities."
Attempts to contact Choudhary proved futile but sources said the education minister, who also looks after the IT department, was holding a review meeting of the education department.
In the first week of March, Ravi Shankar Prasad had inaugurated Patna's first BPO, Maestros Technical Services Private Limited, which will deal with the products of the Centre's Digital India campaign.
