Silicon Valley entrepreneur makes Bihar hometown an outsourcing hub

Katihar (Bihar), Nov 10 (IANS)
Katihar, a small town in Bihar, is today providing tech support to
public and private sector firms in California - thanks to the efforts
of Ravi Verma, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who was recently in Patna
in connection with the preparations of "Global Meet" to be held in Jan
next year.

Verma, who hails from Katihar, around 350 km from Patna, is the CEO of
Telecommand Software and Services in the Silicon Valley that maintains
the Entrepreneur Resource Planning (ERP) systems of the State of
California.

ERP systems integrate all data and processes of an organisation into a
single unified system.

"I am from Katihar. I invested some dollars here because I feel
charity should begin at home. It was my childhood dream to do
something for my native place," Verma, who recently visited Bihar,
told IANS during a visit here.

According to Verma, Telecommand provides IT consulting and support to
both public and private sectors in Sacramento county and wider
northern California areas.

Verma, in his 30's, said he was proud of running a successful software
development centre in Katihar. "Not many thought it could actually
happen. I chose Katihar to prove that one can make a difference."

He started his business in this town in December 2005 and it was a
profitable venture right from day one. "California is our premier
customer and our Katihar team works hard to maintain its systems. Our
team in Katihar works as though they are sitting in the US itself."

The biggest challenge for Verma was to motivate the people in Katihar.
He hired software engineers belonging to the town who had gone to
cities like Bangalore and Mumbai in search of work.

Verma also set up the R.S College of Computer Science and Engineering
in Katihar in July.

"I hope other NRIs also do something for their hometowns or home
districts," said Verma, a graduate from IIT Kanpur who migrated to the
US in 1994-95.