Government expects large number of call centres in smaller towns

Union minister for communications and information technology Ravi Shankar Prasad has today said that expression of interest (EOI) will be called for opening of call centres with 48,000 seats in various smaller cities of the country.

While laying the foundation stone for Headquarters of the National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT) in New Delhi today, he urged the institute to have online courses for students in the rural areas and small towns.

He also launched a new digital marketing course and a national toll-free helpline number for extending help to the students of the institute over phone.

He said that there was an urgent need for bridging the digital gap in the country by improving upon computer literacy. The institute should seize this opportunity and should become a digital empowerment centre for the country.

The minister also said that the NIELIT should play a greater role imparting education in the field of electronics to strengthen electronic manufacturing in the country. NIELIT's efforts to start digital marketing courses is commendable as artisans, traders etc from all corners of the country should be digitally trained to take full benefits of the ecommerce revolution taking place, he added.

The National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT), with a network of 31 NIELIT regional centres, about 900 accredited training partners and nearly 6,000 facilitation centres across the country has trained over 20 lakh students in the last two decades.

NIELIT is a part of the department of electronics and information technology (DeitY), ministry of communications and IT.  NIELIT has also set an ambitious target of training 55 lakh students in the ICT segment for jobs, in the coming 4-5 years.