Electronic & IT to help shape new India: Ravi Shankar Prasad
NEW DELHI: Electronic & IT are well set to shape new India where all services would be available on door-step in both rural & urban India. Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union Minister for Electronic & IT, Law & Justice said this here to-day while inaugrating Networking workshop on India BPO promotion scheme.
He said Narendra Modi’s Government is determined to create a knowledge based society to improve effeciency & reach of the services. He said unlike Industrial revolution, India is all set to take lead in the ongoing Digital revolution.
He said India’s contribution in the growth of IT industry is well acknowledged all over the world. The sector has substantial share in India’s growth story. During last fiscal IT & IT enabled services earned the highest ever revenue of $143 billion which is around 9.3 % of GDP in India. During the same period the sector also recorded an export of $ 108 billion which is around 45% of services export from India. The sector gave direct employment to 3.7 million people and last year alone 2 lakh additional employment were created.
On prospect of BPO industry Mr. Prasad said that India holds 38% share in global BPO industry and stage is set for massive growth of the sector. With increased focus of the government on good governance and impetus of the industry towards better customer services, the need for call centers will increase.
He said, country is gradually moving towards a citizen oriented e-governance model, which will be based on reduced physcial interface with the government office, the needs for effective citizen support would be required. This demand can be met by the call centres. Moreover, running BPO operations in big cities has become expensive due to rising cost of real estate and other essential amenities. To mitigate this cost factor the BPO industry should move to small towns where these overheads are lesser.According to some estimate if the BPO industry moves to smaller towns it will save around 10-25% of the costs.
In his remarks, P.P. Chaudhary said BPO industry must prepare itself to take up additional responsibilities that will arise because of new initiative being taken in tax system, health & e-commerce. He said with total digitalisation of services under process, opportunities for BPO are imense.
India BPO Promotion Scheme (IBPS)
The Government has approved India BPO Promotion Scheme (IBPS) under the Digital India Programme to create employment opportunities and promotion of BPO/ITES operations across the country to secure balanced regional growth of IT/ITES industry, with an outlay of Rs 493 crore.
The scheme provides capital support along with special incentives upto Rs 1 lakh/seat in form of Viability Gap Funding (VGF). About 48,300 seats have been planned with distribution across State(s)/UT(s) based on population percentage as per Census 2011, excluding metro cities along with their urban agglomeration viz. Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, NCR and Pune and States of North East Region (NER).
Dedicated Web Portal www.ibps.stpi.in is being launched today which is one stop web portal to know bidding details, status, news, alerts and other related information regarding India BPO Promotion Scheme (IBPS). The web portal also provides special login for bidders to raise disbursement requests related to capital support, special incentives and to furnish Quarterly Performance Report etc.
Objectives
Creation of employment opportunities for the youth, by promoting the IT/ITES Industry particularly by setting up the BPO/ITES operations.
Promotion of investment in IT/ITES Sector in order to expand the base of IT Industry and secure balanced regional growth.
Salient Features
- Total BPO/ITES seats: 48,300
- Financial Support: Upto Rs. 1 lakh/seat
- Scheme Outlay: Rs. 493 crore
- Targeting employment for ~1.5 lakh persons across the country.
- Disbursement of financial support directly linked to employment generation and is re-imbursement based.
- Reduces migration to metro cities.
- Online Bidding (eprocure.gov.in)
- Details at www.meity.gov.in/ibps
Financial Support under IBPS
Capital Support: 50% of actual expenditure with cap of Rs. 1 lakh/seat
Special Incentives: Percentage of eligible capital support, within cap of Rs. 1 lakh/seat
(a) 5% for promoting local entrepreneur
(b) 5% for providing employment to women
(c) 2% for providing employment to persons with disability
(d) Up to 10% for providing employment beyond target
(e) 5% for setting up operations other than State Capital
Status
The scheme was launched by Hon’ble Minister of Electronics & IT on 28th December 2015 during Good Governance Week. In the two rounds of bidding of IBPS, 83 online bids for about 15,000 BPO/ITES seats received. In-Principle Approval (IPA) issued for a total of 9,020 BPO/ITES seats. 22 online bids received in 2nd round of bidding for more than 3,000 seats are under technical and financial evaluation by STPI.
ü More than 50 companies will set up BPO/ITES operations in 60 Locations across 18 States & 2 UT. The details of the scheme are available at www.meity.gov.in/ibps
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