By : Mr. N.R. Mukhriwale,
Member Services, DoT

I consider it a great privilege to address this august and enlightened audience assembled here today. The subject matter of discussion, "Call Centers" is of great significance especially in the developing world, and I am certain that the deliberations would be of immense benefit to all of us.

The topic has been chosen with great care and pragmatism and organizers need to be complimented for this. Communications and Information Technology sectors are the Key areas in the future. In today’s world, telecommunication is expected to usher in a concept of global economy of single world market place. Recognizing the relevance and importance of Electronic Commerce, a special mention has been made in the New Telecom Policy 1999 which says that

"On line Electronic Commerce will be encouraged so that information can be passed seamlessly. The requirement to develop adequate bandwidth of the order of 10 Gb on national routes and even terabits on certain congested important national routes will be immediately to so that growth of IT as well as electronic commerce will not be hampered."

Department of Telecom Operations has made available an opportunity to the young entrepreneurs/NRI's/foreign collaborators/national and international companies /private and govt. organizations to establish their own call centers in India to provide different type of services to their customers.

The main objective of Call Center is to provide single window help to the customer of the organizations for various type of services utilizing telecom services, e.g. maintenance support, operational support, post sale support, etc.

Call Centers can be of two types (I) domestic and (ii) international. Usage of Domestic Call Centers can be exploited by private and government organizations to provide centralized service to their customer of different cities of different states irrespective of the distance. As per call center regulations, Department has permitted the incoming enabled PSTN calls connecting at one end or both end or at multi-points based on the configuration chosen by the organizations according to their customer base. Outgoing enabled PSTN connectivity is not permitted due to the very reason not to infringe upon the jurisdiction of long distance service providers.

However, Keeping in view the genuine concern especially of tourism industry, outgoing connectivity through Virtual Private Network (VPN) has been proposed to have an access for Railway/ Air Ticket Bookings and Hotel Reservations, etc. This solution is viable and cost effective, if any organization wants to utilize this facility in a restricted way to contact limited number of agencies on actual need basis.

So far as international call centers are concerned, they are virtually extension of help desks from foreign countries to India through International Private Leased Circuit (IPLC) via fiber optic or Intelsat. At Indian end, these help desks are not permitted to have any connectivity to PSTN or any other network i.e. they should be stand alone. PSTN connectivity at foreign end has been permitted to facilitate foreign customer to have voice and data access via IPLC to these help desks called international call centers. There was also genuine concern of IT Industry to allow PSTN connectivity at Indian end to enable their foreign end customers to be able to contact software expert at his/her residence. Department has proposed these three solutions (I) toll free number on IN platform (II) IPLC linked to Virtual Private Network (VPN) and (III) toll free number linked to EPABX.

Some companies have recently approached DTO to allow interconnection between international call centers. These requirements are under consideration, International Call Center business is very much attractive and lucrative as most of advance countries are more and more interested to set up their own call centers through direct investment or joint venture with Indian partners due to mainly two reason (I) sufficient number of trained personnel with proficiency in English speaking are available in India as compared to the IT manpower availability in their countries (ii) IT manpower availability is much cheaper in India as compared to man power availability in foreign countries (iii) time difference between India and US.

Department has so far approved 24 call centers and 11 domestic call centers and number of requests received from different organizations are also being processed. Department is encouraging Indian companies to come forward of their own or through joint venture with foreign partners to establish more and more call centers in India so that our young generation gets employment and also foreign currency inflow to India gets multiplied. The following concessions for setting up of call centers are already in vogue.

1. No application charges.
2. No license fee.
3. No processing charges.
4. No rental/tariff except normal prevailing rental/tariffs applicable for leased ccts.

Ministry of communications has taken several steps to provide adequate, reliable and affordable bandwidth and leased circuit for software export units and IT enabled services including call centers. A High Level standing Committee has been set up under the Chairmanship of Chairman, Telecom Commission for overseeing bandwidth and leased circuits requirements. Clearing house committee has also been set up under the Chairmanship of Adviser (Operations) for expeditious clearance of domestic leased circuit.

I am confident that growth of call centers will be phenomenal in our country.