The centre will be located in the northern city of Chandigarh, said Romi Malhotra, managing director of the Indian subsidiary, Dell India.

"Dell will begin recruiting efforts immediately and will hire technical support and customer relations agents, as well as managers, over the next few months," Malhotra said in a statement.

Dell opened its first Indian call centre in the southern technology hub of Bangalore in 2001 and later added a software development centre. In 2003 it opened a second call centre in Hyderabad.

Malhotra said employees at the Chandigarh centre will help support Dell customers and assist in sales, customer care and other shared services.

Over 2,000 foreign firms have outsourced backoffice operations to India to take advantage of its vast pool of educated and less expensive English-speaking workforce.

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