Wipro BPO, the Business Process Outsourcing arm of Wipro Technologies, has inaugurated its first

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rural BPO center at Manjakkudi Village (Tamil Nadu), on the banks of river Kaveri in Tiruvarur district that has a population of about 2,500. The Manjakkudi center has a capacity of 120 seats, and will open with a 50 seat pilot project for an international client in the retail sector. Wipro plans to expand its rural BPO operations to 500 seats by March 2013, in Tamil Nadu and to replicate this BPO model across other states in India, in the near future.

Graduate students between the age group of 21 to 25 will be employed in the Manjakkudi Wipro BPO center, delivering a range of services to customers across industry sectors.

Conceptualized on the ‘Back Office to the Back Office’ (BOBO) outsourcing model, the focus of the center is to capitalize on the literate talent pool available in the region and in doing so, create employment opportunities in the village and its surrounding areas, Wipro said in a statement.

According to the company, Manjakkudi was selected due to the relatively high levels of investment in education in the region, and the benefits from more than 46 colleges within a 40 km radius where more than 13,000 students graduate annually, providing a large talent pool.

The Manjakkudi center is a result of a tie-up with the Swami Dayananda Educational Trust, a public charitable trust involved in providing quality education to the economically backward sections of rural Tamil Nadu.

Manish Dugar, Senior Vice President & Global Head, Wipro BPO, said, “Rural BPOs are a crucial part of the development of our country as a business leader. What we see happening is that the established, urban, BPO centers are taking on more specialized, knowledge-based services. This means that the natural opportunity for rural BPO centers, like Manjakkudi, is to take on the bulk data processing jobs. This initiative is a part of Wipro’s long term strategy to expand its Rural BPO presence to other parts of India.”

M R Rajgopal, who works as an Assistant Manager at the Wipro Manjakkudi BPO center, said, “This center opens up new opportunities for me and my colleagues. In the past, professional jobs like these were only available in the cities, which meant leaving the community. We aspire to make this center one of the best respected Rural BPO centers in India to show just how much rural communities like ours can contribute to our country.”