Chhota Udepur taluka, one of the most backward regions of Gujarat state has reasonably good infrastructure and availability of young manpower. It is also well connected by road with Vadodara. Generally the opportunities available in rural areas in terms of training are either related to agriculture, dairy, animal husbandry or skills like masonry. Setting up a BPO training center in tribal area would provide opportunities for skill enhancement to the rural workforce through training in ICT education, English language development and BPO processes.
The goal of this project is poverty reduction by doubling the income of tribal youth belonging to BPL families by capacity building for employment in BPO sector, primarily in the rural location. Here an effort is being made to bridge the gap between rural and urban youth. Considering that the prime driver for basic BPO services is cost advantageous, envisaging a model, where rural infrastructure is used and process agents are also drawn from rural youth, is one of the most appropriate ways of presenting such a low cost advantage to the customers, who are willing to outsource their processes.
Shroffs Foundation Trust, through its first of its kind BPO Project in tribal area, intends to leverage ICT for BPO Services as a pilot project resulting in a public-private partnership business model, with a view to generate employment for local educated youths, as-well-as to help develop a sustainable model that could be scalable and replicable in other parts of rural India. Not only that technology can play an important role in upgrading and improving the hidden caliber and efficiency of the women power existing in India. Reducing the gender divide, educated young girls and housewives who cannot travel distances, can be brought into the workforce and hence enhance existing household income levels. The project would also focus on addressing pressing needs of India through market-driven technology solutions, increasing the purchasing power as a result of income from the rural BPOs, to improve quality of life of local tribal community. 200 youths will be trained during 2 years. Each batch consisting of 100 youth will be trained and subsequently employed at the end of each year. At the end of two years when the project is over, it can be handed over to the industry to run as a full fledged BPO center.
