What are the Work From Home liberalized reforms that will transform Indian IT and ITes globally?

To qualitatively improve the Ease of Doing Business of the IT Industry particularly Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and IT Enabled Services, the Government has drastically simplified the Other Service Provider (OSP) guidelines of the Department of Telecom. The new guidelines tremendously reduce the compliance burden of work from home for the BPO industry.

In the new regime, the government has done away with the registration requirement for OSPs. Also, the BPO industry engaged in data-related work have been taken out of the ambit of OSP regulations. Also, requirements such as deposit of bank guarantees, the requirement for static IPs, frequent reporting obligations, the publication of network diagram, penal provisions etc. have also been removed. Similarly, several other requirements, which prevented companies from adopting ‘Work from Home’ and ‘Work from Anywhere’ policies have also been removed. Additional dispensations to enhance flexibility for the Industry have been allowed.

Talking about the guidelines, the government in a release said that the new framework will provide a strong impetus to India’s industry. “It will make India one of the most competitive IT jurisdictions in the World. The new guidelines are inspired by Prime Minister Modi’s strong emphasis on Minimum Government, Maximum Governance.” The new guidelines will remove unnecessary bureaucratic restrictions to allow the industry to focus on innovative new products and solutions.

What are OSPs?

OSPs are entities providing applications, IT-enabled or any kind of outsourcing services using telecom resources. The term refers to BPOs, KPOs (knowledge process outsourcing), ITES, call centres, among others. The 7-page long updated list for the work from home regime states what the new requirements. It also suggests what all has been done away with.

The OSPs may also operate as under

• Work From Home (WFH)

• Work From Anywhere (WFA) in India

• Infrastructure sharing

• Centralized EPABX (i.e., Distributed Architecture of EPABX)

The major relaxations are:

1. No registration certificate will be required for OSP centres in India.

2 Further, for the OSPs the collection, conversion, carriage and exchange of the PSTN/PLMN/ISDN traffic over the Virtual Private Network (NPLC, MPLS VPN) interconnecting the different OSP Centres is permissible.

3. The International OSPs are allowed to carry the aggregated switched voice traffic from their POP in a foreign country to their OSP centre in India over leased line/MPLS VPN.

4. Interconnectivity of two or more Domestic OSP Centres of the same Company or group of companies is permitted. Similarly, interconnectivity among International OSP Centres is permitted.

5. Interconnection of Remote Agent to the OSP centre/resources is permitted.

6. An OSP having multiple centres may obtain internet connection at a centralised location and this internet can be accessed from other OSP centres using leased circuits/ MPLS VPN.

7.  NO Bank Guarantee whatsoever will be required for any facility or dispensation under these Guidelines.

8. The concept of Work From Home, and also Work-From-Anywhere shall be treated as Extended Agent Position or Remote Agent of the OSP.

9. Interconnectivity between OSP centres belonging to different OSP companies shall be permitted.

10. Bypass of licensed International Long Distance Operator (ILDO) and National Long Distance Operator (NLDO) jurisdiction should not take place.

11. EPABX at a foreign location in case of international OSP will be allowed. However, the OSP will take all the necessary measures to comply with the requirements of relevant provisions of Indian laws including applicable data privacy laws. Also, the OSP shall maintain a copy of CDR and System logs in storage at any of its OSP centres in India.

To know more about the guidelines, you can also read the official press release from DoT.