college and an office job was 17yearold abhijits dream but financial problems meant he had to join his father on the farm helping to grow paddy and sugarcane collect fodder and sell milk that became his life in the tiny hamlet of baburayanakoppal near srirangapatna in karnataka until three months ago when an abandoned rice mill in the village was renovated and became the office for a 100seater bpo business process outsourcing unit word was soon out in the village that there were jobs to be had though he neither spoke nor understood english abhijit decided to give it a shot he applied wrote a test was taken in and trained today hes part of the indian bpo army once seen as an urban opportunity accessible only to educated englishspeaking boys and girls abhijits employer b s venugopal a director of mpro solutions says though the training takes time it is worth the effort we did not expect to find readily employable talent in rural areas they are raw with no language or communication skills but eager to learn a few weeks into his training abhijit tells toi crest in grammatically correct english its not that a farmers life was a bad one but farming doesnt pay enough for a comfortable living in my case i had no education and didnt think i could be anything other than a farmer now as part of his job he makes calls to prospective donors from a database seeking funds for ngos his salary is rs 3500 a month abhijit isnt the only one taking advantage of bpos going rural even as many outsourcing firms based in cities put a freeze on hiring many new units are opening up in villages and towns in the south karnatakas itbt secretary ashok kumar c manoli says the companies are bringing technology and financial empowerment to rural youth the idea is to create a rural bpo cluster which can be integrated with similar projects across the country he says we want to promote jobs for rural youth who have some computer knowledge and belong to small towns with a one lakh population to start with each of these centres will have 100 seats he adds abhijits colleagues at mpro mahesh jagadish an orphan soumya and a dozen others are also taking advantage of this economic transformation but what will they do with the extra money abhijit wants to help his father buy more cows his friends too want to help their parents out but they also want to buy mobile phones and bicycles the initiative will change the economic fabric of the countryside manoli says bpos will make youth in the hinterland financially independent as they did in the urban areas they will have money for marriage to pay off debts or buy sewing machines and cows more importantly it will stop the mass exodus of young people from villages to cities seeking employment he says it is the