Hyderabad ranks 5th in English fluency

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Secondly, the accent in Delhi is less harsh than in the South," 2 5 Žsays Moha# 2 5Ɏn Kannegal, co 2 5à Ž- m2 5íAŽfounder and director of MeritTrac. The company has assessed over # $ ’2 eZŽ350,000 candidates for Microsoft, Dell, GE Capital, ICICI Onesource, Progeon, Wipro, IBM, " ! ! ) "+2 •ŽVerizon among others.. $ 2 •¤Ž 2 Ŏ j2 õ?ŽKannegal says the letter ''R'' is pronounced harsher in the South :2 õ�Ž than in the North. "A Punjabi ›2 %`Žaccent is akin to an American. While there is language fluency in South India, the spoken words $ ) .2 UŽare often complicated."$ 2 UªŽ 2 „Ž -NANIì¥�5@ ð¿Ubjbj�2�2 D­X­XUÿÿÿÿÿÿˆ:::::::$šÂÂÂÂΚ‹ ¶æææææ��� $AR“ F0 :Ø��ØØ0 ::ææÛE æ æ æ ؾ:æ:æ æ Ø æ æ æ ::æ æÚðî¿w÷²Ä– Fæ [ 0‹ æ Ù Ü Ù æ ^$‚::::Ù :æ $�ؙšæ 3|¯)���0 0 ššdþÄÜ ššþNEW DELHI/HYDERABAD: Hyderabad ranks fifth in the country when it comes to language fluency, accent, grammar, and voice clarity—all skills needed for a call centre job, according to a study released by MeritTrac, a competency assessment service company. A study of 7,500 walk-in interviews for a BPO job found that Delhi leads Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kolkata in that order in these skills. In other words, an American or European customer would feel more comfortable to talk to a call centre in the national capital than elsewhere in India. "The existing manpower in call centres is large in Delhi and that''s one of the reason why that city ranks highest in English fluency. Secondly, the accent in Delhi is less harsh than in the South," says Mohan Kannegal, co-founder and director of MeritTrac. The company has assessed over 350,000 candidates for Microsoft, Dell, GE Capital, ICICI Onesource, Progeon, Wipro, IBM, Verizon among others. Kannegal says the letter ''R'' is pronounced harsher in the South than in the North. "A Punjabi accent is akin to an American. While there is language fluency in South India, the spoken words are often complicated." Not surprisingly, companies are flocking to the capital. There are over 50,000 people working in call centres run by GE, Wipro Spectramind, IBM Daksh, Amex, v-Customer, among others. That accounts for almost a third of the 160,000 call centre jobs in the country. Unsuitable spoken English skills is the biggest rejection criterion in the recruitment process for BPO. "You have to screen 10,000 candidates to recruit 400 people for a BPO job." The conversion rate of hiring is just 4 per cent. Nasscom is working with state governments to train manpower required for the BPO sector. Experts say at the current ratio of 100:4 for application to recruitment, the number for hiring 5 lakh people would be 1.25 crore, which is much higher than the current output of graduates. "The big challenge is to hike the number of final hiring rate to 15 per cent if the country has to meet the job demand of an additional 5 lakh people by 2008," says an observer. TUüøhèeÜhšW ˜ ™ 0 1 À�—˜™š¢ £ Š‹¢£Uúg PSúg PSúg PSúg PSúg PSúg PSúg PSúúúg PSúg PSúg PSúg PSúg PSúg PSúg PSúg PSúg PSúg PSgdšW Uý 1�h°�/ °à =!°"°#� $� %° 1�h°�/ °à =!°"°#� $� %°þÿà …ŸòùOh«‘+''³Ù0d�˜¤°ÀÌØè ø , 8DLT\ässrajeshkajeajeNormalrajeshk1jeMicrosoft Word 10.0@Œ†G@Å#÷²Ä@Å#÷²Ä>þÿÕ�՜.“—+,ù®0ôhpˆ�˜ ¨°¸À ÈÕä timesonlineeQA Title