The call centres will help multinational companies (MNCs), based in the US, the UK or other European countries, to set up a central facilitation desk which would answer all queries for the company from India. This is helped by the fact that US companies have very competitive international call rates for bulk users and setting up of such facilities would be cheaper in India. These facilities could also be used by domestic companies which need to offer product/service information on the telephone to their customers.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has drafted a policy for allowing such call centres to be set up. The proposal has suggested export oriented unit (EOU) status tothose centres which facilitate international telephone call traffic which would be foreign exchange earner for the Government. The proposal is likely to be discussed by the Telecom Commission later this week.

The policy would allow call centres to only receive incoming calls on circuits leased from the DoT. For international calls received, once they land in India, they would be directed from the VSNL gateway on to the DoT network as international calls are the monopoly of the public sector Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL).

These international call centres would not allowed to be connected to other domestic network centres, even if they belong to the same company. This is to avoid call back services which may result from the fact that the low rates of incoming international calls may be provided to local subscribers in India (as Indian international call tariffs are much higher than those in the US or the UK).