Patna: In a historic development, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) on Thursday opened eastern India’s largest business processing output (BPO) center in Patna.

The move by the country’s largest software company comes as a good news at a time when several IT firms are laying off thousands of people.

Bringing Nitish Kumar-led state on the IT map, Union information technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad inaugurated the 100-seat BPO center. The center will be expanded to accommodate 1900 people.

Software Technology Park of India (STPI) has helped in developing the center which could generate employment for more than 2000 youths.

Terming it a historical moment for Bihar, Prasad announced to set up six more such centers in the state. After Patna three more centers would be opened in Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga and Dalsingh Sarai.

Chief executive officer (CEO) of TCS, Rajesh Gopinath was also present at this occasion. He said that the company would continue to explore opportunities in Bihar.

“The TCS center is a state of the art facility with robust technology infrastructure that will drive new opportunities for businesses and jobs. It will help generate quality jobs and play a critical role in energizing this region”, he said.

Referring to demographic dividend, Gopinath said that country’s 65 percent population consisted of youths and half of them are digitally literate, which would only help in increasing the pace of digital economy. “Our company operates in 56 countries. We have offices at various locations in India and now a new chapter is opening in Bihar,” he said.

The opening, however, was not far from controversy due to the conspicuous absence of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar and state’s IT minister Ashok Chaudhary.

Prasad criticized the leaders saying that the inauguration should not be politicized as it was only helping in developing the state.

“The ministry has been requesting the state government to allocate land for opening the electronic cluster but was still awaiting response,” Prasad added.

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