GramIT, the rural BPO initiative of the Byrraju Foundation, is in talks with various funding agencies “to expand the scope and presence of its rural BPO services,” said foundation’s lead partner Verghese Jacob. Byrraju Foundation is the NGO outfit formed by Satyam Computer Services founder B Ramalinga Raju in his personal capacity.

“The initiative has so far received funding from Raju’s personal wealth, while recurring costs were met through customer fees. But now to invest in our expansion, we are negotiating with funding agencies, which could pick up some equity or bring investments along with good customers,” he told Business Standard.

Jacob said GramIT has put its two new BPO centres planned at Chindwara and Sausar in Madhya Pradesh on the backburner as they are yet to get clients. The two centres are expected to employ 200 people.

“Each centre requires an investment of about Rs 80 lakh. Now that the funding from the Raju family has ceased, we want to expand only after we see a visible funding from the family again. If not, we will utilise the money raised from the funding agencies and commence operations at those two centres in the next three to six months,” he said. Source

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