Rural call centre in Sonari village turns five
The first and the only rural call centre of Uttar Pradesh is in village Sonari, about 50 km from the state capital on Lucknow-Sitapur road. On Sunday, the centre that has transformed the lives of hundreds of village youngsters celebrated its fifth anniversary.
Like any other call centre, this facility handles about 12,000 calls on a daily basis from the customers of Vodafone. Their queries and complaints are answered by local class 12 pass students, employed by the centre.
The man behind this lifetransforming initiative, RK Misra, decided to start a rural call centre and took up the project in 2011.
“I always wondered how we could help our rural youth, who were living a life of desperate hopelessness with no livelihood opportunities,” said Misra, adding, “Village youngsters in UP have no job opportunities. Government schemes talk about unemployment allowance but what they need is employment. I grew up in the same village and have seen things going from bad to worse with family growth resulting in land divisions, leading to abject poverty.”
Expressing joy on the centre completing five years, he said, “It is a proud moment for us today when we are celebrating the fifth anniversary of the call centre.” He added with pride, “We have team leaders who left call centres of multinational companies in Lucknow to work in this village. Our call centre is a unique example of city youths migrating to vil- lage for job opportunities.”
Expressing hope, Misra said, “In Sonari, use of technology has removed the rural- urban divide. I hope that every district of UP gets one such rural BPO/call centre soon.”