Plans to make city a BPO hub remain a pipedream

[sajiv]

Plans to make city a BPO hub remain a pipedream

Wipro delays launching of its BPO operations

The city houses a dozen BPO units

VISAKHAPATNAM: Reeling under the impact of market meltdown, the efforts to make the city a BPO hub has suffered a setback with several units scaling down their operations.

About 170 of 300 staffers of Satyam unit have been shown the doors under 'virtual pull policy,' while Wipro, which set up its majestic campus next to Satyam building, appears to have decided to go slow on launching its BPO operations. HSBC was the first to kick off its operations in the city but it is not hit by recession as its BPO activity caters to its own insurance and banking business abroad. However, Wipro's plan has run into rough weather after it put up its super-structure on seven-acre land. It had committed to starting its operation in February by roping in clients in customer care, technical support and voice areas of business. Having planned to invest Rs.200 crores on world-class support system with a 6,000-seater capacity, in the first phase it was supposed to have 1200-seater.

The city houses about a dozen BPO units -- most of them are small players who are hit hard. As per land allotment policy of the State government, every investor has to provide employment for 100 people per acre. As of now, about 30 firms have been given 125 acres and many of those who started their operation are yet to fulfil the employment norm due to variety of reasons.
No facilities

With major clients looking for low-cost destinations in China, Philippines, Vietnam and Brazil, IT entrepreneurs feel that more facilities should be created in tier-II cities like Vizag and Mysore.

"Our city has several advantages with less travel time from one place to another with several beautiful locations. But we lack low-cost bandwidth, public transport, drinking water and uninterrupted power supply to IT SEZ at Rushikonda," says Naresh Kumar, Managing Director of Symbiosys Technology.

According to a spokesman for Visakhapatnam Information Technology Association, investors want to run away from IT hubs at Hyderabad and Bangalore due to high density of population increasing traffic and cost of living. IT entrepreneurs in the city want that a special package should be launched to showcase the city as tier-II destination.