Computers Bring Jobs to Rural Women in India

What strikes a visitor entering the Source for Change business processing centre (BPO) in rural Rajasthan, a deeply conservative state where women are veiled and child marriage still rampant, is the near absence of men in the building.

There are only rows of women to be seen behind computers that stretch from end-to-end of the single-storey house painted in green that has been transformed into the Source for Change office. BPOs are a 28 billion dollar industry in India, based mainly in cities like Bangalore.

Source for Change has launched a social revolution in and around Bagar, a quiet town of some 10,000 people, some 600 kms north-west of New Delhi. Before it opened, educated girls here had only two options: work on farms or at home.

Now after two months of training, each employee is assigned independent data entry duties, the BPO’s main work for clients like the Piramal Group, a big Indian drugmaker, and Pratham, a Delhi-based non governmental organisation for children.

Now Source for Change has expansion plans and intends to increase its employers in Bagar to 100 associates by January 2010. There are plans also to create a network of offices that will be spread across Rajasthan, each employing between 100 and 150 women.

With new clients like the Rajasthan government and the Confederation of Indian Industry, the biggest business association in the country with 7,500 members, the BPO's can now afford to make new plans for providing employment opportunities to rural women in India.