At least half of all calls to the United Kingdom's National Rail Enquiries are to be handled by operators in Mumbai and Bangalore under a new business process outsourcing agreement reached in London on Wednesday.

The Association of Train Operating Companies, which announced the deal, said sub contractors BT and Ventura won the five-year deals -- starting from April 2004 -- following an "exhaustive" tendering process.
 
BT's calls will be answered by their partner ClientLogic at centres in Derby, Newcastle and Bangalore, while Ventura's calls will be answered in Dearne Valley, south Yorkshire, and in Mumbai.

Current statistics show that around 150,000 people call the rail enquiries number every day. Under the new arrangements, half of the calls will be answered by operators at the Indian call centres from April.

The work is to be divided between the two companies, Ventura and BT, which have been testing the rail inquiry service on a trial basis from Bangalore for the past six months.

ATOC said the trial had been very successful.

Chris Scoggins, chief executive of National Rail Enquiries, said, "We have undertaken an exhaustive and thorough tendering process which has led us to select two high quality partners on the basis of quality, reliability and value for money."

ATOC added that the new contracts had been awarded following an exhaustive process held under the European Union rules.

Last month, a major British bank and a French insurance company had also announced their decision to shift jobs to India. While Abbey bank confirmed it was moving 400 call centre jobs to India, French insurance giant AXA said they would shift 230 British jobs to India.