India to take up Call Centre Act with US

KOCHI: India would bilaterally take up with the US the issue of Indian BPOs regarding the ‘United States Call Center Worker and Consumer Protection Act’.Addressing industrialists from Kerala on Thursday, Indian Ambassador to the US Nirupama Rao said the Indian Embassy is planning to raise the issue in appropriate inter-governmental forums.The embassy has already communicated with the US Government that ‘’protectionist barriers in the field tend to be counterproductive in their outcome’’. “The embassy is aware of the introduction of this bill.The proposed legislation seeks to focus on the issues emnating out of possible relocation of call centres from the US to overseas market.We are currently in the process of undertaking a detailed impact analysis of the bill in terms of scope of its business coverage and the impact it would have on the Indian BPO industry. We are in touch with NASSCOM and the relevant Union Government departments on the issue,” said Nirupama.She was addressing the members of the Confederation of Indian Industry (Kerala) Chapter in Kochi.Nirupama said the embassy is closely monitoring the movement of the bill through the US Congress. “We plan to raise it in the appropriate inter-governmental forums as also bilaterally through the US Administration. We are analysing the political context in which the bill may get situated in the US,” she said. Nirupama said the embassy is conscious of safeguarding trade and investment interests of the Indian industry including IT industry in the US market. She pointed out the need to expand and diversify Indian export basket to the US. She said the Indian industry should focus on increasing manufacturing exports to the US. The embassy is ready to work with Kerala industries to identify specific products for export and specific technologies that Indian industries may want to acquire. Indian companies should partner with US businesses in areas like bio-technology.“We should expand it to include specific bio-tech clusters in India. Kerala also offers rich opportunities with its core competencies in traditional medicine, bio devices manufacturing and scientific research to develop such clusters.Such cooperation can be pursued independent of policy-based cooperation,” she said. CII Kerala chairman Jose Dominic and vice-chairman V K Mathews also spoke.