HSBC and GE Cap to set up BPO centres in Kolkata

EC Team / Kolkata

While Cyberabad may still be reeling under the electoral reversal of its mentor, Buddhababu’s Bengal is shining. Two large companies, HSBC Electronic Data Processing and GE Capital have said that they will soon set up their business process outsourcing (BPO) centres in Kolkata. Confirming this development, Manabendra Mukherjee, the state IT minister said, “The two companies have asked for land from the state government to set up BPO centres.”

Pramod Bhasin, president & CEO of GE Capital had called Mukherjee recently to confirm the company’s decision to set up a 1,500-seat centre in the city by March 2005.

For the last couple of years, GE Cap had been weighing the pros and cons of setting up a BPO centre in Kolkata. The company employs around 7,000 people across its five centres in the country.

The wholly-owned subsidiary of HSBC would be doing both voice and non-voice transfers from their Kolkata facility. The company is engaged in customer-service and data processing for HSBC worldwide.

Representatives from both companies will be visiting the city shortly.

The total investments involved in these two projects works out to nearly Rs 160 crore. ‘Other leading firms like LSI Logic and ICRA have evinced interest in setting up their facilities in the city, Mukherjee said.

Meanwhile, buoyed by these two announcements, the state IT department has lined up road shows in Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Mumbai in the next couple of months to showcase its IT & ITeS strengths.