BANGALORE, INDIA: Sparsh BPO Services, a domestic BPO subsidiary of Intelenet Global Services Pvt Ltd (Intelenet), inaugurated its new delivery centre in Puducherry as part of a strategic deal with Aircel, a mobile services operator in India.

The centre will provide customer support services for Aircel's operations in Tamil Nadu and Chennai circles. The delivery centre in Puducherry will service Aircel's base of prepaid and postpaid cellular subscribers in the Tamil Nadu circle.

Located at Kurumbapet in Puducherry, the centre, designed in French colonial style, would have an initial headcount of 1600. It would be the largest BPO employer in the union territory and would be scalable to accommodate 2200 employees.

For Aircel's customers in the Chennai circle, Sparsh would provide services out of its Chennai centre employing over 500 employees. Both centres would provide customer service in English and Tamil languages.

Susir Kumar, CEO, Intelenet Global Services, said, "We are delighted to partner with Aircel, one of the frontrunners in the telecom industry in India. Puducherry is an emerging outsourcing destination for the IT-BPO sector, and we chose the union territory for its excellent infrastructure and competent talent pool."

Gurdeep Singh, CEO, Aircel, said, "As we expand our business in south India, we needed a partner with core strengths in the domestic telecom industry, and Sparsh as the leading domestic BPO player was the obvious choice. The scalability and service quality offered by this partnership, will help Aircel drive its agenda to becoming a full-fledged national operator by 2009."