Shining in rural India A BPO in Tirupati town has proved

to be a magnet for youngsters from the surrounding villages for whom

the job is turning out to be a life-changing experience.

RASHEEDA BHAGAT

I t is a swank air-conditioned office like the several thousands of facil­ities that dot our metros and even tier 2 cities. But at this BPO in Tiru-pati, virtually at the feet of Lord Ven-

kateswara, the swagger and bluster, and of course the supreme confidence, often bor­dering on arrogance, that you find in a Mum­bai, Bangalore or Chennai is virtually absent.

The faces are young, bright, enthusiastic, but take a closer look and you notice the furrowed brows and the deep concentration with which the young women — the morning shift is virtually dominated by women as no woman can work beyond 7 p.m. — are punching in data on their computers.

The sun's rays have already turned sharp but you notice some of the women wearing sweaters, mufflers and woollen caps. M. Durgaprasad, Assistant Vice President and Head Operations (BPO), smiles at your puz­zled look and says, "These people are not used to sitting in air-conditioned rooms and are guarding themselves against a cold."

The Atlas Documentary Facilitators Com­pany is a rural BPO wholly owned by HDFC Bank. Set up in the temple town of Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, it takes care of the bank's backroom operations such as opening of new accounts, foreclosure of loans and credit card-related activities.

The 550-odd employees at this BPO, which was started in July 2008, are gradu­ates and were selected and given prelimina­ry training by the government-run EGMM (Employment Generation Marketing Mis­sion), which works in tandem with the De­partment of Rural Development. A unique characteristic of all the workers at this BPO is their rural background; about 55 per cent are women, they are first-generation gradu­ates, and some the sole graduate from their village.

"WON'T GIVE DOWRY" Chandrakala, 21, hails from a village near Anantapur, about 150 km from Tirupati. She gets paid over Rs 5,000 like most of her colleagues, lives with five of them in a room where the rent is Rs 1,500. They sleep on the floor, but have smartly invested Rs 1,500 on an electric rice cooker. Before leaving for their morning shift, some basic cooking is completed for their lunch, which they take at 3 p.m. The girls make simple vegetarian food and opt for a breakfast of idli-dosai-coffee costing Rs 6 and delivered by a canteen oper­ator to the BPO. They all walk the 1.5 km distance to office.

Chandrakala's father is a small farmer, and in the last five months she has sent home Rs 8,000 — big money for her family. But you soon learn that her parents have not touched this money. Not even for the education of her younger sister, who does not study. "Our village is very small, it has no college and not many people are interested in education. In fact, I'm the first and only graduate from my village," she says proudly.

So will her money go towards paying her dowry?

"No, Ma'am. I will not give any dowry when I get married," she says, and smiles when you suggest that it might then be used for the marriage expenses. But the cheerful news is that the parents of none of these young women are in a hurry to push them into marriage.

Chandrakala and many of her colleagues, some 24 or 25, dismiss the question of mar­riage and indicate that a steady job and eco­nomic empowerment are more precious to them.

Durgaprasad points out that they come with very basic skills and can barely manage to feed in 15 words a minute on the comput­er. "But we train them on the job and help improve their English as they have studied in Telugu medium. Most of them are first-gen­eration employees and children of agricultu­ral workers, small farmers, carpenters, dhobis, barbers, etc. The work entrusted to them is non-voice based data processing."

Chandrakala and her colleagues are in­volved in processing the image of the docu­ment sent to them when new accounts are opened in HDFC Bank. After the data is fed into the computer, a second pair of eyes checks it to minimise mistakes. "I find them sincere, disciplined and hardworking, and we identify 11 employees every quarter and give them a bonus of Rs 2,000 to motivate them," he says.

INTENSE, HARDWORKING One can see the intensity and concentration on the faces of the young women. Pushpa, 22, is the daughter of a landless agricultural la­bourer who works on a meagre daily wage of Rs 60-70, and that too when work is avail­able. From her take-home salary of Rs 3,700, Rs 2,500 goes to her parents and helps in running the house which includes her broth­er (16) and sister (11). The remaining money she needs to take a bus or 'share-auto' to the office, 12 km from her home.

But doesn't she retain some of her salary for personal expenditure like buying clothes or trinkets?

"No; if necessary my parents buy for me," she says quietly.

S.S. Venkatesh comes from Narayanap-uram, about 30 km from Tirupati. A B.A. in Economics, he is the son of a construction worker who earns a daily wage of Rs 100; his aspiration is to do better, and he is pursuing a degree in Computer Science. Like many ru­ral graduates struggling to find employment, he too was defrauded of Rs 25,000 by an agent, before he landed this job. He walks to office, shares a small room with four other men, they cook their food on a kerosene stove and whatever money is left from his Spartan lifestyle is sent to his father.

You have to prod him a little to find out that this money goes towards repaying the loan of Rs 70,000 his father had borrowed to pay his sister's dowry — 5 gold sovereigns and some cash.

His is not the only pair of sad eyes in the room. Mahesh Babu, 23, is the son of a dhobi from Tirupati. His father too makes less money than him — about Rs 100 a day, and his salary is a big help in running the home and repaying whatever was borrowed for his sister's marriage recently.

0. Balaji, 26, is married, and grateful to have this job since July 2008. An M.A. in Political Science, his take-home salary is Rs 4,500 and, as his wife doesn't work, it is entirely required in running the house. "Apart from my bus ticket — he lives 57 km from Tirupati — I have no other expenditure."

A TELLING SOCIAL COMMENT One is not sure if if s a gender thing, but compared to the men, the women appear happier, brighter and more optimistic about their future. And most of them are certain that they will think of marriage only after

getting a firm grounding in their job, even though not all are optimistic that no dowry will change hands. Abida, 25, who has just joined the BPO, puts it plainly when she says: "Without dowry, there is no marriage. For my sister, they asked for Rs 1 lakh in cash and some gold too."

While resigned to dishing out dowry, Abi­da has told her parents to wait at least for two years; "and, I've made it clear that even after marriage I will continue to work."

That she will get her way is evident from the fact that she has refused to wear the burqa to work. "My parents said at least cover your head with a black scarf, but I said nobody does that in my office, so how can I?"

Vijayalakshmi, an MBA in HR from a Ti­rupati college, is an experienced recruiter and a team leader with an annual pay pack­age of Rs 1.2 lakh. Her father is a retired employee of the TTD in Tirupati; she is 24, comes to office on a scooter, and wants to

wait two years before "thinking of mar­riage".

Dowry? "I don't think so," she says with clenched teeth, adding, "today, things have changed for women in India."

ADVANTAGE: RURAL INDIA Spelling out the advantage of setting up a BPO like this, A. Rajan, Group Head, Oper­ations, HDFC Bank, says ultimately such ventures will survive only if they are "sus­tainable over long periods; temporary gene­rosity will not help. Or else there are many philanthropists who can set up such rural ventures."

Some NGOs from Noida, Delhi and Tamil Nadu have shown interest in replicating this model in their States, and Rajan is also in talks with some overseas customers. But the limitation is that for now such rural gradu­ates can only do image-based work. "Voice is not their skill base. So I can't give them any customer service activity or medical tran­scriptions because they can't understand foreign accent. But the most important thing is getting long-term commitment and sup­port from local governments," he says. Every State has budgetary allocation for rural de­velopment, which in many States remains unused. "All they have to do is use it; good thoughts about rural uplift are not sufficient; action is required to change the face of rural India."

At the end of the day, such a job can make a world of difference to rural graduates. Dur­gaprasad says the money they take home means a lot.

"They give almost all of it to their parents. Consider the background they come from. I went to the house of one employee whose father is a barber... and it's not like he has a big shop in the village. All he operates from is a chair under the tree. After working in a bank for 35 years, when the project was explained to me, I was thrilled to manage it. I enjoy the work and feel happy I'm able to help some people. They motivate themselves to do well; not even a single person has been sent out because of shoddy work."

Response mav be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in

Helping hand: A team leader guides an employee at HDFC Bank's rural BPO in Tirupati. RASHEEDA BHAGAT

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