2,000 vehicles hired by BPO firms ply at night

2,000 vehicles hired by BPO firms ply at night

The Hindu

40,000 work in the sector; shift timings vary

# Most of the vehicles are SUVs
# Vehicles carry eight to 10 employees per trip

Bangalore: Around 40,000 persons are employed by the business process outsourcing/call centre sector in Bangalore.

Headcounts vary from 50 to 200 in one location with inbound (taking calls from overseas clients) and outbound staff (making calls to clients overseas). This comprises technical and non-technical staff.

Nearly 2,000 vehicles are hired by the call centres to transport their night duty staff, according to police estimates. Most of these are sports utility vehicles (SUVs), carrying eight to 10 employees in each trip. Some call centres use cars, transporting four employees at a time.

The police said the car that picked up Prathiba was one of the 206 vehicles hired by the Hewlett-Packard call centre from private travel agencies.

Police Commissioner Ajai Kumar Singh, in a release, said he had advised call centres to review their transport system and ensure the safety of employees travelling by hired vehicles.

Most of the call centres with clients in the U.K. and West Asia function between 6 a.m. to midnight, in two shifts. Those with their client base in the U.S. function from 6.30 p.m. to 3.30 a.m. with variations in individual centres. Shift timings change according to the time schedule adopted in North America such as daylight saving time or west/east coast times. The employees have a five-day week. In some bigger companies, security personnel accompany the woman employees being dropped alone.

With the boom in the sector over the past three years, the number of companies hiring vehicles from travel agencies has increased. They prefer this arrangement considering the maintenance costs and high salaries that have to be paid to company employed drivers.

Some travel companies own and hire out 10 vehicles regularly. Almost all vehicles hired on long-term basis sport stickers of call centre with phone numbers asking the public to inform the company if the vehicle is found speeding or driven rashly.