Date:24/08/2004 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2004/08/24/stories/2004082402300700.htm

Back HP moves low-end BPO jobs to rural area in AP

Vishwanath Kulkarni

Kuppam , Aug. 23

HEWLETT Packard (HP) is likely to move a portion of its internal business process outsourcing (BPO) jobs to Kuppam in Andhra Pradesh. HP is implementing its `i-community programme' at Kuppam, through which it expects to transform the lives of rural citizens with the help of technology.

"We are in talks with various units of HP to transfer some of the low-end internal BPO work to i-community IT Enabled Services (ITES) Centre, Kuppam," said Mr Anand Tawker, General Manager, Emerging Markets Solutions, Asia Pacific.

As part of its commitment to create IT-enabled jobs, HP has facilitated the creation of an ITES centre at Kuppam. The centre would soon start a pilot for executing the BPO work for HP with between 50-100 people, Mr Tawker said.

About four local youths are employed at the centre to execute the low-end BPO jobs such as data entry, forms processing and page scanning among others. At present, a Delhi-based firm Datamation has sub-contracted the legal form processing work from US customers to the i-community's ITES centre.

The centre is initially being managed by the i-community programme team and would be eventually handed over to the community to run it in a sustainable manner, Mr Tawker said.

To create awareness of IT among the citizens, the i-community is also running an IT training centre, which offers both short-term and long-term courses at lower fees.