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BPO call centres to come up in rural areas soon

Staff Reporter

BPO call centres to come up in rural areas

CONNECTING THE WORLD: Shakeel Ahmed, Union Minister of State for Communications and IT, and Ekwow Spio Garbrah, CEO, Commonwealth Telecom Organisation, Ghana, arriving for the meet on `Connecting Rural Communities' in the city on Monday. -Photo: H. Vibhu

KOCHI: The Department of Telecommunications, as part of the national mission in Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas (PURA), has taken up a plan to bridge the digital divide.

This was said by Shakeel Ahmed, Union Minister of State for Communications and IT, at the inauguration of the two-day Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation's (CTO) meet on `Connecting Rural Communities' here on Monday.

"We aim to create BPO call centres and ITES in rural sectors as part of PURA enterprises using electronic connectivity available in the form of high bandwidth broadband connectivity," said Dr. Ahmed.

The whole country has been divided into 7000 PURA, where each PURA cluster will connect 20 villages depending on the region and population. Among other infrastructure facilities like road and transport, electronic connectivity through telecom with high bandwidth fibre optic cables will reach rural areas, said the Minister.

Knowledge connectivity through Internet kiosks and vocational training for farmers, artisans and craftsmen and entrepreneurial programmes are expected to generate more economic activity, which will help banks, micro-credit units and marketing of products, he said.

ICT industry can establish rural call centres on the model of Kisan call centres established by the Ministry of Agriculture, which can provide domain knowledge in the services, agriculture and manufacturing sectors, he said.

The Minister said that the department's Gramin Sanchar Sevak Scheme, launched in 2002, where the postman takes a mobile to every household in a village, enables people to make calls from their doorstep. It is an example of convergence of telecom and postal services.

Ekwow Spio Garbrah, the Chief Executive Officer, CTO, from Ghana, in his address said that creating a communication highway provides the impetus to growth.

S.A. Thomas, Chief General Manager, BSNL, Kerala Circle, spoke on he occasion. A.K. Saxena, Member (Services) Telecom Commission, Department of Telecommunication, welcomed the delegates.

M.K. Jain, Deputy Director General (IR) DOT, proposed a vote of thanks.

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