New Delhi: Call Centre employees all across India are experts in the art of customer care, call handling and many other technical skills, but soon a new item will be added to their job profiles.
Besides all these skills, they will be taught on how to avoid the risk of accquiring AIDS.
Experts feel the new found social freedom of call centre employees makes them vulnerable to contracting the AIDS virus and thus companies across the country are designing AIDS awareness programmes for their employees.
Studies have shown that the over one million people employed by call centres in India are emerging as an HIV/AIDS risk group in India and thus this joint initiative between Global Business Coalition (GBC) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
GBC's purpose is to raise awareness of the epidemic and raise ideas on how to mount an effective government and civil society response to counter the disease.
Despite the economic boom caused by the BPO industry in India, industry experts feel that the new lifestyle this has given to the employees can lead to an increase in spreading of the virus throughout the country.
GBC is committed to meeting the challenges of the AIDS pandemic through access to the business sector's unique skills and expertise.
In India, the number of AIDS affected has risen from a few thousand in the early '90s to 5.7 million in 2005, second only to South Africa. With a population of over one billion, the HIV epidemics in India will have a major impact on the overall spread of HIV in Asia and the Pacific, as well as worldwide.
There is also an alarming rise in the number of young people who have both multiple sexual partners as well as unprotected sex.
Call centre management groups agree that the environment in their workplace is unusually conducive to youngsters getting attracted to other youngsters easily, and thus many call centres have agreed to participate in the programme so as to keep their employees informed about the risks related to HIV.
Sociologists feel that this is a healthy way to promote awareness about the ill effects of HIV AIDS and a great way to take a step towards controlling the epidemic.
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