Centre eases guidelines for BPOs and ITES, facilitates ''Work From Home''

The government on Thursday announced simplified guidelines for BPOs and ITES companies to reduce the compliance burden on them and to facilitate ''Work From Home'' and ''Work From Anywhere'' framework.

The new rules for Other Service Providers (OSPs) seek to create a friendly regime for ''Work from Home'' and ''Work from Anywhere'', while removing frequent reporting obligations for such companies, according to an official release.

OSPs are entities providing applications services, IT enabled services or any kind of outsourcing services using telecom resources. The term refers to Business Process Outsourcing (BPOs), Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPOs), IT Enabled Services (ITES) players, call centres, amongst others.

The government said the latest reform reflects its strong support to the IT industry, with a view to encourage increased investment in the sector.

Check out the detailed guidelines issued by the Telecom Department: 

1. No registration certificate will be required for OSP centres in India.
2. Special dispensations for OSPs:
2.1 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.
2.2 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.
2.3 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.
2.4 Interconnection of Remote Agent to the OSP centre/resources is permitted.
2.5 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.
3. 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)
4. NO Bank Guarantee whatsoever will be required for any facility or dispensation under these Guidelines.
5. The concept of Work-From-Home/ Work-From-Anywhere shall be treated as Extended Agent Position/ Remote Agent of the OSP.
6. Interconnectivity between OSP centres belonging to different OSP companies shall be permitted.