Following the example of private operators, BSNL has decided to outsource its customer care requirements to private call centres.

Following the example of private operators, BSNL has decided to outsource its customer care requirements to private call centres.

The company has invited bids for setting up and managing its business process outsourcing (BPO) operations in the southern zone. BSNL has restricted the bidding to only large BPOs with over 3,500 seats in India or over 6,500 employees globally with the capability to set up stand-alone centres. The bidding for this zone will begin on November 11, 2009. Following this, it will invite bids for the other three zones. The five-year outsourcing contract for all zones is worth over Rs 50 billion. Meanwhile, the company is also in the process of floating tenders to outsource management and maintenance of its 50,000-plus towers and over 100,000 km of optic fibre cable network.