The Union IT ministry on Monday said it has approved 9,020 seats under the India BPO Promotion Scheme (IBPS), which subsidises BPO companies setting up operations in smaller cities.
The scheme provides capital support and incentives up to ₹ 1 lakh per seat to the companies which set up BPO operations in tier 2 and tier 3 cities after fulfilling specific criteria.
The ministry had launched IBPS in December under the Digital India Programme with an outlay of ₹ 493 crore and a provision for 48,300 seats.
“With increased focus of the government on good governance and impetus of the industry towards better customer services, the need for call centres will increase,” minister for electronics and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad said at the launch of the scheme’s web portal in New Delhi.
The government has so far completed two rounds of bidding for IBPS and received 83 bids for about 15,000 BPO/ITES seats. A total of 22 online bids were received in the second round for more than 3,000 seats which are under evaluation, the ministry said.
The government in India is on pace to spend $7.2 billion on IT products and services in 2016, an increase of 2.4% over 2015, research firm Gartner Inc. said in a separate report released on Monday.
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