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India is making great strides in digital revolution. While advanced technologies such as Artificial intelligence, Internet of Things and blockchain are making Indian IT behemoths ambitious, the Government is more concerned about putting the tier-II and tier-III cities on the IT revolution map. Metro cities in our country have attracted big domestic and international players from the IT field by leveraging pro-active policies of the Government, huge engineering talent pool and IT grade infrastructure. The success is evident from the growth of the IT industry — its turnover in 1991 was just $1 billion and two and a half decades later, in 2019, it stands at $177 billion.

While the IT industry has seen phenomenal growth during the last three decades, unfortunately, it was limited to leading metropolitan hubs like Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kolkata. Consequently, these cities witnessed a spurt in urbanisation as massive populations from the countryside and smaller towns migrated to these cities in search of jobs. This unchecked migration resulted in mounting significant pressures on infrastructure and sustainability of bigger cities. While migrating labourers could secure a job in metro cities, they were not able to cater to the family needs in a holistic manner.

Moreover, metropolitan cities have already reached a saturation point for BPOs because of high cost of infrastructure and civic amenities. Tier-II and tier-III cities, including the likes of Ahmedabad, Patna, Varanasi, Ranchi, Imphal, Nashik Jaipur and Chandigarh among others, have proven their strength for a very long time as an effective alternative to already developed metropolises such as Bengaluru, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Pune, Hyderabad and Delhi. A demographic shift is required to plug the digital gap between the metro cities and smaller cities.

In order to resolve the underlined issues and challenges faced by the youth, the Government envisaged two BPO schemes — the India BPO Promotion Scheme (IBPS) and the North East BPO Promotion Scheme (NEBPS) — under the Prime  Minister’s Digital India programme.  With a total budget outlay of Rs 543 crore, the two BPO schemes envisage employment of 1,50,000 youth in tier-II and tier-III cities.

Under the above mentioned schemes, the Government provisioned various incentivisation strategies such as financial support towards capital and operational expenditure, special incentives for employing women and differently-abled people, additional incentive for employment beyond target and wider dispersal within the State beyond the capital cities to attract the local entrepreneurs. Such strategies have in turn encouraged local entrepreneurs to leverage associated benefits and join the bandwagon of dispersal of the BPO industry to smaller towns.

In addition to this, the provision of joint venture between two or more companies has also lifted the spirit of local entrepreneurs to participate in such schemes and reap benefits so as to generate employment opportunities in their respective regions.

After three-and-half years of their launch, the schemes are thriving successfully. The nodal agency in charge for implementing them has left no stone unturned in achieving the Government’s vision. Today, 52,972 seats have been allocated out of a total of 53,300 seats. Around 42,830 seats are operational across 120 cities by employing over 28,579 local youth, including 9,340 women being employed. As a result, small cities like Muzaffarpur, Deoghar, Vidisha, Balasore, Unnao, Siliguri, Hazaribagh, Sopore, Tumkur and Guntupalli are getting their rightful place on the IT map.

Employment opportunities for the local youth, too, have been created in smaller towns. Moreover, through such schemes, a significant number of women have been employed. In some companies, the percentage of women employment is even more than 50 per cent.

Currently, these BPO units are providing services in 16 languages like Arabic and Spanish in around 18 domains, including but not limited to healthcare, KPO, e-commerce, e-learning, technical support, medical transcription and digital marketing to international clients from the US, the UK and Canada.

Once such BPO centres are set up in small towns and cities and they start operations, they will not only create direct employment for the local youth but also generate further opportunities for ancillary sectors to operate and create indirect employment. Eventually, BPO centres are creating a holistic ecosystem for economic growth of the locality, which is the core objective of the such schemes.

Moreover, the strong foundation laid by the Indian IT industry is also being leveraged for an all-inclusive growth of smaller/mofussil towns through such schemes. With employment and economic dividend to regional players, these programmes have been significantly reducing the rural-urban divide, alleviating the load of migration to metros and paving the way for a resurgent India that echoes inclusive development for all citizens.

(The author is director-general of Software Technology Parks of India)

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