When a highly charged cam-paign against "outsourcing" that marked the American Presidential elections came to the fore, many intellectuals in India raised concerns about the IT industry boom. Keeping aside the rationale behind this massive anti-outsourcing upsurge in the US, the positive element in this regard is that as long as we have quality workforce to meet the demands of developed countries, our lead in the direction to encash the boom is intact. However, the BPO industry has been making headlines and attracting media attention for sometime for all wrong reasons. The British media allegations of "data theft" and "fraud" by some Indian call center employees of a Gurgaon-based BPO company "Infinity E-Search" that lead to the leakage of bank account details of some 2000 Britons generated sensation across the world. It questioned the "integrity" factor about which Indian companies always stake claims. Even the arrest of three employees of Pune-based BPO, MphasiS, on charges of siphoning off $350,000 from the Citibank accounts of four New York-based account holders makes it evident that the issue of "reliability", upon which outsourcing phenomenon in IT-enabled services relies, has to be redefined with due attention on the need to check malpractices of this kind. The arrest of another Gurgaon-based call center employee, Arif Azim, who used the credit card data stolen from US customer Barbara Campa's records to purchase a television set and a cordless phone, brings to light the dynamics involved in the manageability of BPO operations that are expected to contribute a revenue of about $13.8 bn to the already booming Indian economy.
The NASSCOM-McKinsey report spelt a $60 bn export market up-for-grabs by 2010. But the only thing that concerns the industrial lobbies in recent times is the question of restoring clients' faith in the Indian workforce as it is found to be eroding with issues like "data insecurity", testified in the above cases. While, on one hand, speculation among clients spread across the continents is much ripe about the "reliability" and "trustworthiness" of Indian call center employees, there are many hurdles affecting the workforce morale, thereby, raising concerns about the safety and security of employees, particularly women employees. The recent episode of rape and gruesome murder of a woman call center employee (Pratibha Srikant Murthy) of Bangalore-based HP call center triggered a massive debate on the security of women employees in the BPO industry. As multiple issues are involved in this, a balanced view is needed to avoid controversies and to arrive at an effective solution. An attempt is made here to find out the implications of this phenomenon as it sent shock waves to many middle-class families who rely on the BPO industry's support to manage their children's careers.
At a time when anti-globalization protests are intense and at their peak, as witnessed in Hong Kong, some workable mechanism needs to be evolved to ensure employee security and to protect native culture and civilization from the onslaught of its Western counterpart. The rising boom of call centers across the nation needs to be stabilized; for this, attention on "work conditions" and "safety standards" prevalent at the workplace are required. Otherwise, this gives rise to unrest and alarm in various forms.
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