SRINAGAR: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday afternoon inaugurated first ever Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) unit in northern Kashmir’s Bandipora district at S K International Conference Centre (SKICC) on the banks of Dal Lake.

Dr Shahid Choudhary, Deputy Commissioner, Bandipora in a tweet said, This is in Kashmir, trust. Precisely in Bandipore, my port of call. I am talking about a Call Centre in Bandipore. Taking off with 250 staff, to train 600 annually. Isn’t it amazing

Mr Modi immediately after visiting interior parts of the Dal Lake in a motorboat, inaugurated the BPO, the first in the north Kashmir belt.

An official spokesman said the aim is to attract entrepreneurs, investors and MNCs in IT and BPOs to establish their business units with ultimate objective of enhancing employment opportunities for the youth in the district and neighbouring districts.

It is a step towards promising educated unemployed youth of providing jobs and a better future, he said.

He said BPO will also provide an employment oriented investment atmosphere in Kashmir valley. The IT enabled skills lab will train 600 educated youth every year for placement in BPOs and this will provide platform for establishment of more BPOs and attracting employment oriented investment.

He said it will also provide jobs to minimum 215 local professionals and will also serve as a model for replication to attract job-oriented investment in Kashmir valley for local youth. IT enabled skills lab will be ready for operations and first batch will be inducted in Mid-February 2019 for training, he said adding the BOP setup has been put in place with a main hall, office, IT room, systems room and associated facilities with furniture, furnishing, hardware, software procured and installed fully.

The BPO has the potential of transforming hundreds of lives in Bandipora a district that has often been in the grip of terrorism and terror-related activities. The rural BPO here, therefore, would provide employment opportunities and the hope of a respectable livelihood to hundreds of young people.

He said in land-locked Kashmir valley, where the presence of private sector enterprises is almost negligible and employment opportunities for educated people in rural areas have so far been limited, will prove a new window of hope for unemployed educated youth. However, there is very good response and there are also plans of opening such BPOs in other districts of the state in order to provide employment to locals.