activities such as call centre and back-office operations for banking an insurance as well as sale and administration into one location.

The MoU was signed in the presence of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and Managing Director of ICICI Bank K.V. Kamath.

The proposed hub will accommodate approximately 10,000 people in a phased manner and have the capacity to scale up the operations in the future to a potential 15,000 manpower.

The State government will allot a suitable plot to the bank in Chandaka Industrial Estate for the hub that will have a final built-up area of 1.5 million square feet to accommodate the envisaged manpower.

In order to ensure availability of skilled local manpower, the bank has already started working in a partnership model with two universities in Orissa.

In this regard, a separate MoU was signed between the bank and Utkal University on the occasion for offering various skill enabling and vocational courses in the domains of banking, finance and insurance.

Speaking on the occasion, the Chief Minister said the hub will create enormous employment opportunities for general graduates and include a large number of women employees. The hub will help build up Bhubaneswar as a cooperate city, he added.

Stating that the project assumed importance for the State, Patnaik assured that the government will provide all support to ensure that the hub attained its fullest potential.

In his address, Kamath said that Orissa was a focus State for ICICI Bank.

Stating that ICICI Bank and its group companies had already provided employment to around 9000 people in Orissa, Kamath said the proposed hub will create more employment opportunities for the youths graduating from different collages of the State.

Later in the day, the bank signed another MoU with KIIT University for running of an e-Learning Centre like the one to be run by Utkal University.