The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Government urged to start courses for publishing BPO

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Feb 21, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Government urged to start courses for publishing BPO

Special Correspondent

“Curriculum can be a special, exclusive course, or part of existing system”

— Photo: K.V. Srinivasan

SHARING A POINT: Sriram Subramanya, vice-chairman, CII Puducherry (left), and Gopal Srinivasan, chairman, CII Tamil Nadu, at a seminar in Chennai.

CHENNAI: Leaders of the BPO publishing industry has urged the government, the CII and the NASSCOM to introduce courses for publishing BPO, with specific curriculum, to meet the huge demand from other nations.

The curriculum could be a special, exclusive course or part of an existing curriculum, Sriram Subramanya, vice-chairman, CII Puducherry, and founder, Integra Software, said, addressing a conference on publishing and BPO services here on Wednesday. The number of employees in the sector was likely to reach 74,000 by 2010.

However, with the lack of specific courses to train candidates in e-publishing, it was unlikely that this huge demand for resources could be met. The industry could generate $1.46 billion by 2010 as revenues through off-shoring at an estimated growth of 35 per cent a year.

While there were a number of opportunities ahead, it was true that the recession in the global economy, the appreciation of the rupee and the emergence of new media were some macro-economic factors that would affect the industry. Publisher expectations were also increasing in terms of speed to market, consistence in quality, providing end-to-end services, reducing prices and the need to deal with fewer suppliers, Mr. Subramanya said.

The conference would provide a platform for experts from the industry to deliberate upon the best practices and exchange ideas. The intention was also to bring better visibility to the industry, enabling it to attract talent, he said.

K. Venugopal, Joint Editor, The Hindu and Business Line, expressed the hope that members of the industry would come together to create institutions and mechanisms to shore up skill sets and other competencies.

He said India’s inherent strengths, including skills in basic language, graphics and wage differentials, were attracting off-shore contracts. However, there was considerable ground to be covered to raise language skills on a par with international standards and train more people in graphics.

Gopal Srinivasan, chairman, CII Tamil Nadu, said the publishing industry in Tamil Nadu was based entirely on talent. He urged the industry to think about framing a special focus curriculum and course for e-publishing to find and nurture talent.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu