BPO Hub:  Locals missing out
By Nitin Paul 
 
The vast majority of young people in the Mecca of BPOs and Call Centers, Gurgaon have not really benefited from the ITeS boom here and work as BPO cab drivers or security guards, the industry experts feel. In one such observations made by the father of ITeS industry in India, Raman Roy, during a seminar here, he said that Gurgaon grew as the world’s BPO capital but its local lads failed to benefit from this upsurge because of poor study patterns and social/lifestyle skills.
 
The chairman of Quatrro BPO Solutions, Raman Roy, who was the first to set up a BPO unit in Gurgaon 15 years back, during a panel discussion in Gurgaon quoted a NASSCOM study that the BPOs in India did $11 billion business this financial year 2007-08.
 
“58 out of each 100 BPO jobs in the world were generated by BPO companies in India. Surprisingly 50 percent of the job opportunities came up in NCR (National Capital Region) and seventy of this by the BPOs in Gurgaon. But the local lads failed to clinch the opportunity and Indians from other States have migrated to take up the BPO jobs.   The majority of Gurgaon-based youths working with BPOs are either cab drivers or security guards,” Roy said.
 
While citing reasons for this, Quatrro chief Raman Roy said that the state had failed to provide its youths the educational grounding the BPO industry required.
 
Roy said, “Even those migrating from other cities to Gurgaon feel the crunch of quality educational institutions like schools and colleges, healthcare facilities and doctors and entertainment avenues in Gurgaon. Gurgaon has failed to produce the required quantum and quality of manpower for BPO industry for which it is known the world over.”
 
Present on the occasion the Financial Commissioner and Principal Secretary - Industry and IT, Haryana PK Chaudhery said that the state government had decided to produce at least 1000 skilled workers every year by setting up professional education institutions. The government would also set up community colleges to impart to the youth training on lifestyle skills including accent and language of English to meet the emerging need of BPOs in Gurgaon, he said.