Dhanamma is an amazing example of women getting empowered. She has been a girl with fierce determination and will power to make it big. In spite of stiff resistance from her mother, this second daughter of a shepherd father and farm laborer mother from one of the villages bordering Tirupati managed to graduate. Dhanamma is now an agent at the rural BPO.
When two management students from Vignana ]yothi Institute of Management, Hyderabad, Aparna Krishnan and Sirisha, met her as part of a case study on the rural BPO project, Dhanamma recollected her days when she walked miles together to graze goats, helpless at not being able to go to college. Her mother thought it was worthless attending college instead of helping her with her field work and household chores. She went to college to only write her examinations. She took a BA in political science and when she listened to a presentation by EGMM at a meeting of a SHG, she was convinced that her dreams can be fulfilled by taking up the training at EGMM. She persuaded her father and joined the 45--day training. She was later absorbed by ADFC at the BPO.
"The 45 days at EGMM changed me completely from a shepherdess to a woman ready to be employed in a swank, air conditioned corporate office," she tells the management students proudly displaying her ID card. She feels that the training has been the best part of her life as she has acqUired English speaking skills and can manage the work like any other urban girl.
Dhanamma stays in a hostel at Tirupati as her home is in Patagunta, which is 40 kms away from Tirupati. She sends Rs 2,700 every month to her parents. She complains that many people in her village waste their time doing nothing productive and getting into bad habits like gambling.
Aparna and Sirisha write in their case study: "Dhanamma is a mascot of whole generation of women fighting their way to getting educated and going beyond their borders. She is the first girl to get graduated from her village and the first girl to go out of her village to earn a living. This determination is now spreading in the whole village. On her way to her home lots of kids come up to her to greet her. She says that all of them wish to work like her in the City."
recruited from villages around the temple town, from the lowest rungs of the economic strata. These youngsters (many of them walking down or cycling to the office covering anywhere between 5 and 15 kms daily), are quite a contrast to the motor cycle riding call center executives of the cities.
"We started the Rural BPO more as a corporate social responsibility with the intention of proViding employment opportunities to the rural youth rather than as
a cost-cutting initiative," says A. Rajan, group head - Operations of HDFC Bank and a director on the board of ADFC. "The cost aspect was considered to the extent that the bank should not be spending more than what it was incurring for similar activities in the metros. This is important, since it is pointless to start an initiative unless it is economically viable and self-sustaining in the long run. Since the BPO is intended to proVide job opportunities closer to the rural employees' residences, the bank had to necessarily locate it in a remote town away from the metros, thus incurring a higher cost on leasing appropriate bandwidth. However, this cost is expected to be offset by the fact that infrastructure costs like rentals and wage bills are lower at remote towns, compared with those in a metro," he adds.
There is also another significant advantage.
In rural areas, there is very little attrition as the youngsters, while working in the BPO, can continue to support their family business as well. So, there is a double benefit for them and they are less likely be tempted by the better salary prospects in the metros.
Rajan agrees: "There is negligible attrition.
This saves the BPO significant re-training expenses, which is otherwise incurred by the metro based BPOs facing a sizeable turnover. The few resignations that were seen in the Tirupati BPO were due to the fact that some of the female staff who got married had to re-locate. There were also a few cases where the ladies had to resign for compelling family responsibilities. This was anticipated since the BPO predominantly employs a larger
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