On the occasion of World Telecom Day, Tata Teleservices Ltd, the fastest-growing telecom service provider, received the ‘2^nd National Telecom Award 2008’ for connecting with the physically challenged through project ‘Drishti’. In an event organized by the Telecom Equipment Manufacturers’ Association (TEMA), Mr Navin Chadha, Chief Information Officer (CIO), Tata Teleservices, received the award from the Union Minister for Communications & IT, Mr Thiru A Raja.

Accepting the award, Mr Chadha, CIO, who is also the Project Manager for Drishti, said: “I would like to convey my gratitude to the entire team at TTSL & NAB for marking this noble initiate a huge success. Project Drishti is bringing new hope and opportunities to thousands of people who live with visual disabilities. In fact, the success of Project Drishti has set the roadmap for implementing similar projects at a national level.”

“Infusing good corporate citizenship has always been at the core of our business. We always strive to make a positive contribution to communities by supporting a wide range of socio-economic, educational and health initiatives. Project Drishti is one of our several projects under the Corporate Sustainability initiative,“ Mr Chadha added.

Drishti is a Corporate Sustainability initiative of TTSL, an enterprising idea to help the visually-challenged become self-reliant, economically-independent, self-confident and bread-winners for their families. A dedicated team at TTSL trains the ‘agents’ and mentors them for personality development, voice modulation, handling customers, etc.

The first pilot project was set up in Mumbai with 10 visually-challenged individuals making outbound calls to Tata Teleservices’ customers and educating them on various schemes, offers and promotions. Today, there are 20 agents working at the call center and plans are on the anvil to add 10 more. With its growing popularity and demand, Tata Teleservices also plans to initiate this project in New Delhi.

The initiative functions on the basis of an internally developed software Interactive Voice Response (IVR). This software records customer updates in specific formats as it identifies errors and omissions made by the agents, thereby, taking up the responsibilities of a supervisor. It enables the visually-challenged agents to work as efficiently as any other customer service agent—providing complete guidance and the required help to the caller. 

Sourced From: Vaishnavi Corporate Communications Pvt Ltd