DCs asked to promptly identify suitable land at distt hqrs
Step to create employment avenues, promote digital services
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Mar 16: As a sequel to Prime Minister’s instructions, Governor’s Administration has set into motion a process for establishment of one Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) unit at headquarters of each district of the State in order to create employment opportunities and promote digital services on a large scale.
While inaugurating maiden Rural BPO in Bandipora district on February 3, 2019, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi had laid emphasis on replicating this pilot project in other 21 districts of the State so as to ensure that Jammu and Kashmir fall in line with other States of the country for ensuring digital service delivery to the common people as well as to create new opportunities in the digital economy.
EXCELSIOR in its edition dated February 6, 2019 had exclusively highlighted that Chief Secretary BVR Subrahmanyam will shortly issue formal directions to all the Deputy Commissioners for acting on the advice of the Prime Minister so that the concept of the BPO is promoted in the State on a large scale.
Thereafter, the issue was discussed in several official meetings by the Chief Secretary and finally on March 13 Advisor to Governor K Skandan held meeting with the Deputy Commissioners through video-conferencing asking them to gear up activities so that BPO in each district is established within shortest possible time, official sources told EXCELSIOR.
Now, on the instructions of the Advisor K Skandan and Chief Secretary BVR Subrahmanyam, Managing Director of Jammu and Kashmir Information Technology Infrastructure Development Private Ltd Ravinder Kumar has dashed an official communication to all the Deputy Commissioners (except Bandipora) to identify suitable land particularly at respective district headquarters for establishment of BPOs.
“There is a requirement of three to five kanals of State land for construction of BPO complex and for immediate establishment of BPO with 100 professionals for training and work purposes, a building with a covered area of about 4000 to 5000 square feet has to be identified which could be used for these purposes”, read the communication of J&K IT Infrastructure Development Pvt Ltd, the copy of which is available with EXCELSIOR.
Some Deputy Commissioners have communicated to the Managing Director of the IT Infrastructure Development Pvt Ltd that suitable land has already been identified while as other Deputy Commissioners will complete this exercise within next some days as Governor’s Administration wants to translate the instructions of Prime Minister into reality as early as possible, sources informed.
“The State Government will first make attempt to meet the cost of construction of BPOs from its own resources but in case of financial constraints Union Government will be approached for financial assistance”, sources said, adding “even the option of availing benefit of BPO Promotion Scheme of the Government of India will be explored”.
They said that the objective behind paying required attention towards the BPO concept is to ensure creation of employment opportunities for the youth of the State by promoting the Information Technology and IT-enabled services industry.
The administration will provide infrastructure including industry standard fibre optic connectivity, skill development/employee training incentive and 100% power supply back up, sources said, adding the agency with which the administration will tie-up will operate its business as per the terms to be decided by the Government with minimum 100 seats in one shift.
Moreover, the agency will work with the district administration concerned by providing required human resources to conduct outreach to local youth. There will be IT enabled skill lab in each BPO for the training of educated unemployed youth for employability, communication, life and soft skills.
“The list of eligible IT enabled services under BPO operations will include bank office operations, insurance, asset management, manufacturing, health and pharma, telecom, travel agencies and airlines etc”, they further said.
It is pertinent to mention here that Business Process Outsourcing is a subset of outsourcing that involves the contracting of the operations and responsibilities of a specific business process to a third party service provider. Originally, this was associated with the manufacturing sector only but at present large number of services have been brought under its ambit.
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