Bhubaneswar, Aug. 1: Genpact, the biggest third-party BPO firm in the country, today firmed up its proposal for a 5,000-seat BPO centre in the city.

A two-member Genpact team comprising chief financial officer Vivek Gaur and senior vice-president Ashok Tyagi met chief minister Naveen Patnaik at the state secretariat this afternoon.

Sources said the board of directors of the Gurgaon-based firm has approved the setting up of the Bhubaneswar centre by January next year.

Tuesday’s Genpact visit was a follow-up to the July 22 visit of Tyagi proposing a centre here.

The BPO firm, which generated a revenue of $493 million in the last fiscal, plans to start operations as early as January 2007 with about 300 seats in Fortune Tower, a plug-and-play complex, with about 36,000-sq-ft floor space and then ramp up operations with over 5,000 employees within five years over a 25-acre plot somewhere in the city.

“They are quite eager and ready to start operations anytime soon. Our only problem is to give them a patch of 25 acres inside the state capital. Genpact would be the biggest advertisement for the state information technology sector as they can employ more people than any other industries,” IT director Vishal Dev said after the meeting.

The Genpact team was today taken to a couple of possible sites, including a patch of land near a private engineering college in Patia, but they did not seem to be enthused by it due to the distance from the city business hub.