Install GPS in BPO Cabs

From the Archives-3: This manuscript which was recovered had been written seven years ago following a tragic incident...

Concern for BPO employees safety

The gruesome rape and murder of one of our industry

colleagues at Pune by her driver yesterday (08 November 2007) has once again shaken the BPO industry nation-wide. As an EXLite in particular and BPO fraternity in general we extend our deepest sympathies to the bereaved family members.

The victim Jyotikumari Ramnand Chaudhuri, a 22-year old working as an associate at Wipro Spectra-mind call centre in Pune was on a late night shift on that fateful day. The incident occured while she was being transported to office. The driver and his friend who was in the cab later strangled and smashed her skull.

This incident has raised the central question for a safe

transportation for BPO employees. Here at EXL security measures had been beefed up following the

2005 tragic incident in Bangalore when a newly 24-year old employee of HP Globalsoft was raped and murdered by a person posing as her driver. It was then EXL Service Holdings Inc Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Vikram Talwar initiated pro-active steps to provide the highest level of security for all its employees. This had indeed paid some dividends - touch wood, no such incident of such nature has ever occurred to date.

After analysing a cross section of the media reports, post Pune incident suggests that there is a crying need to implement few important measures on a priority basis by all BPOs so as to foil any such attacks on its employees in the near future. Among the major ones include the following:

Global Positioning System (GPS): It must be made mandatory to install GPS in all cabs operating in the BPO sector and a deadline must be fixed for all the vendors to comply with it.

GPS is a satellite based device mounted on the dash-board of a car through which movement of a vehicle

 can be monitored by the transport/logistic department. The unit has a small back-lit LCD (liquid crystal display) screen displaying the local map it is moving or poposes to go. It continuously sends signals via satellite to the computer terminals located at the transport/logistic department that enables them to track exact location of the cab. So in agiven situation if a driver tries to misinform about his actual location or deviate from the normal route then the transport/logistic department can send a warning call to the driver through the two-way UHF (ultra high frequency) radio sets.

There are various types of GPS available in the market

while the hand-held one is gaining popularity. In the west including some South Asian countries such devices has become a standard fitment in most vehicles. Advanced GPS system comes with a very sensitive hidden mike and can pick-up audio signals of conversation or any kind of altercation taking place inside the cab. Therefore, it is widely argued that if a GPS was installed in Jyotikumari's cab then at the very outset such incident would never happen since the driver would always fear of being monitored.

Bandwidth Connectivity: The Business Process

Industry of India (BPIAI) has made a remarkable move by agreeing to give bandwidth connectivity of all cabs to the police so that they can contact any driver. They observed this would help create fear among drivers but the light of its day to be implemented remains to be seen.

Speed Governors: Speed Governors must be installed in all cabs which would immensely help check rash

driving. According to prominent IT leader from Pune who is actively involved in industry issues through NASSCOM and CII Ganesh Natarajan, the menace of over speeding by BPO drivers has not been effectively addressed by the industry.

Blacklist offending drivers/vendors: There is a need to blacklist all offending drivers by creating a central data base to be shared by the BPOs. Office-bearers of BPIAI feel that to ensure erring drivers don't find job else where, they would start "blacklisting" such drivers and circulate the list of names among BPOs.

Behave professionally with drivers: One of the leading daily quoting a call centre employee has pointed out that a major problem is that many employees are guilty of not behaving professionally with the drivers. It is true that unacceptable behavior includes not being punctual and forcing drivers to speed, becoming over friendly with them, requesting drivers to drop them at unscheduled spots and getting into quarrels with them.

Conclusion: The Pune incident has once again reflected a clear message to the nation that woman employees are not safe in the BPO industry, It is true that every time a young Indian woman leaves home for work, particularly during the the early morning hours or after dusk, their family members skip a heartbeat and remain tensed till these woman return safe. This is even worse for female employees whose family is thousands of kilometers away.

Therefore, to thwart recurrence of such unfortunate incidents in future and give confidence to the employees, all cabs operating at BPOs must be fitted with a GPS. Already a few companies at Gurgaon and Bangalore have installed such tracking devices in their cabs.

At EXL with a total fleet of more than 400 cabs, all vendors must be directed to install GPS within a given

deadline. It is obvious that vendors will cry foul in fixing such devices in their cabs because of the additional costs involved. But here, EXL has an upper hand and must call the shots. If cab vendors want to remain in business then they must comply with the industry needs. After all no one wants a repetition of another Jyotikumari incident! May the Almighty rest her soul in eternal bliss.