Many companies have moved call centre operations to India

The Amicus trade union says any such move would be "crass stupidity".

The comments follow a visit to India by the chief executive of National Rail Enquiries, Chris Scoggins.

Union officials believe the move could threaten more than 1,000 jobs at call centres in Newcastle, Cardiff, Derby and Plymouth.

David Fleming, a national official at Amicus, said on Wednesday: "This would be an act of crass stupidity.

Loss of work

"Outsourcing this service abroad will not make trains run any faster and will result in a loss of confidence among the travelling public."

Unions have been battling against a tide of call centre jobs being switched overseas, complaining about the loss of work in the UK.

Companies have been warned that their image suffers when they open call centres in other countries.

But many firms have been outsourcing jobs because of huge savings on labour costs

Earlier this year the Association of Train Operating Companies, which awards the service contract, announced it would consider foreign bids.

The current contract is jointly-run by First Information, Serco and BT.

Economically advantageous

A statement from the Association of Train Operating Companies said: "National Rail Enquiries contracts with various suppliers for answering calls.

"As we announced some time ago, towards the end of this year our call answering contracts come up for competitive re-tendering, which is required to be carried out under EC procurement rules.

"These rules require that we select suppliers on the basis of the most economically advantageous tender.

Passenger services

"We issued invitations to tender for new supplier contracts in August.

"We are now in the process of evaluating these tenders - and expect to be able to announce the results by the end of the year.

"Location, unless it is relevant to reliability, quality and value for money, has to be a matter for our suppliers.

"If the re-tendering allows us to reduce costs, any cost savings will be ploughed back into improving passenger services."

Read a selection of your comments below.

I am to lose my job to an overseas operator (in Bangalore) just before Christmas, having also been bombarded by nuisance marketing calls form overseas call centres (you can tell that their names are not really 'Keith' or 'Amanda', I don't why these companies do this). I have therefore decided not to deal with any company or institution that has outsourced their operations at the expense of UK employees. I expect many more feel this way.
John, UK

The cost savings are huge but it is a false economy Daniel, UK

I have had a great deal of experience of working with call centres based in India and assisted with creating them here. The cost savings are huge but it is a false economy. The quality of the English language spoken in the majority of foreign call centres is extremely poor and they cannot understand anything beyond their small circle of training. In addition public perception is seriously damaged upon finding the quality of the call centre dropping to this level. The government is currently actively encouraging this trend whilst in the US they are looking to protect their own workforce. Employees in this country cannot compete with the high taxation and administration we have here.
Daniel, UK

Where is it going to stop? Every office job is now under threat. How can we compete with a few rupees a day? In the future they will probably run remote controlled trains from India.
Alex, England

I work at a factory that has gone from 2000 employees to 350 in 2 years, and now the service industry is seeing jobs move overseas. The government needs to stand in because soon the only jobs in Britain will be shop assistants and public service jobs. And these won't make the country prosperous.
Dom, UK

Most of my IT department got outsourced to India, so none of the engineers that were fired (redundant/ downsized/ right sized) have a salary to take the train anyway so it doesn't really matter. I agree with shifting the directors' jobs.
Jerry, UK

Let's outsource the government to Bangalore...
SD, UK

I think people need to take a wider perspective. Call centre jobs shouldn't be the mainstay of our economy anyway - dare I say we're already too "service oriented". I'm working on systems at the moment that will handle some of the call operatives' duties, and may eventually handle all. The market will decide the best place for these jobs at the time. I wouldn't fancy being the country with an economy built on call centres in five years time.....
Grant, UK

What about the companies' loyalty to the employees? Al, UK

I think it's disgusting that UK companies could even consider outsourcing their jobs to companies based outside the UK. They talk about employee loyalty to the company, what about the companies' loyalty to the employees?
Al, UK

It's all very well shifting all these jobs abroad, but if earnings are removed from this country the companies themselves will eventually suffer from reduced incomes. So the process of reducing costs is in the end self defeating.
D. Gilson, UK

It may be disappointing to see UK jobs moved abroad, but we all complain when train fares rise. So we need to GROW UP and accept that we can't have it all. If we want low fares, we had better be prepared for this kind of cost-cutting move.
David Williams, UK

The days when you could get people of "knowledge and experience" to answer rail travel inquiries ended when it was no longer possible to telephone your local railway station.
Ian, England, UK

A certain third generation mobile phone company already has it's call centre in India and whenever I speak to them I can barely understand a word they say.
Russ, Wales

Better performance for less cost Chris, UK

I don't understand why outsourcing to India will "result in a loss of confidence among the travelling public?" It's been my experience that outsourced call-centres are more efficient, more helpful and generally more polite than their UK equivalents who seem to be manned by sullen jobs-worths. And apparently cheaper, too, since it is happening more and more often. Better performance for less cost - something for employers AND employees in the UK to think about.
Chris, UK

It is not only call centre jobs that are being outsourced, many jobs from the IT industry are being lost as companies outsource to India. How are we to compete on a level playing field when we have high taxation and a minimum wage to compete with?
Chris, UK

The current "outsourced" call centre for rail inquiries is already very poor. They often, in my experience, give out incorrect information and have very little knowledge of the rail network. All they do is read details off a screen. If someone thousands of miles away can do the same for half the price, let's save some money.
Mark, UK

If the government doesn't step in over the loss of these call centre jobs abroad, where are the jobs for people going to come from? We have already lost most of manufacturing abroad, now this.
Tim, UK

I don't suppose the service will be any worse than it is right now.
David, UK

Geographical details provided on screens are no replacement for the knowledge and experience that the existing people have Jeff, UK

Having experience of using one of the 118 'overseas' call centres, it is very obvious that if rail inquires move overseas we will get a similar mess. Geographical details provided on screens are no replacement for the knowledge and experience that the existing people have.
Jeff, UK

Whilst I understand that relocating call centres to India is cheaper in the long run, I think it is a bad move to set up National Rail Enquiries there. It is sometimes difficult enough to get the train times you need without the added complication of possible language/accent barriers and lack of geographical knowledge of the UK that no doubt workers in an Indian call centre will have. Apart from anything else, what about the job losses that will occur here?
Mark Collinson, Liverpool, UK

Disgraceful. I trust that we can start shifting the directors' jobs overseas as well?
Anon, UK

Personally I will no longer deal with any company that moves its call centre outside of the UK.
Karen, UK