IT boom in store

Jamshedpur, Oct. 30: Aegis Aspire, the business process outsourcing (BPO) arm of Mumbai- based Essar Group is all set to start a 2,000 employee-strong call centre at Mango, the second in the state. Jharkhand’s first call centre is at present running in Namkum, Ranchi.

“The tendency amongst youngsters is to move out of their hometowns in search of work, but we as a company want to reach out to people in smaller towns with employment opportunities and make our presence felt there,” said Aparup Sengupta, the managing director and CEO of Aegis Ltd.

Aegis is one of the largest BPOs in the world with 38 centres and 40,000 employees across India, the United States, Phillipines, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Costa Rica and Kenya.

In India alone, the company operates BPO units in 11 cities. Now, the company is trying to reach out to smaller cities like Jamshedpur, Bhopal etc.

The company will invest about Rs 30 crore in Jamshedpur to start the BPO. According to the MD & CEO, the centre would include a domestic in-bound process covering telecom, banking, insurance and healthcare companies.

The recruitment process to staff the unit is on and the company is hiring people as customer executives, team leaders, process trainers and other back office staff.

The call centre will operate in multiple shifts.

Though BPO companies based in New Delhi, NCR, Mumbai and Bangalore often come to colleges in the city to recruit staff, many girls, despite being chosen, stay back as they are reluctant to relocate. A call centre within the city will be an answer to their problems. Also it would stop migration of those who are forced to leave in search of work, sources said.

“We require smart, English-speaking candidates for the position of customer service executives. A lot of people will get employment within the next 30 days as we are all set. This is an important project for us Jharkhand. We need to see how conducive the place turns out to be conducive for business,” said Sengupta.