Modi Govt Introduces Major Reforms To Liberalise Regulatory Regime For IT, BPO Industry

With an aim to qualitatively improve the Ease of Doing Business of the IT Industry particularly Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and IT Enabled Services, the government on Thursday (5 November) removed registration and compliance requirements for companies to carry out work beyond traditional office complexes, allowing them to permanently work from any location.

The move comes after demands made by IT and tech firms to provide permanent relaxation on working location after the trend of working from places other than traditional office complexes began during the Coronavirus lockdown period, reports Times of India.

"Today Narendra Modi government Govt has taken a major reform initiative to liberalize the regulatory regime for “Other Service Provider”. This will boost the IT/ ITeS/ BPO industry and create a friendly regime for Work from Home in India," IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Thursday.

Under the OSP guidelines of the DoT, the registration requirement for OSPs has been done away with altogether and the BPO industry engaged in data related work have been taken out of the ambit of OSP regulations.

Further, requirements such as deposit of bank guarantees, for static IPs, frequent reporting obligations, publication of network diagram, penal provisions etc have also been removed, the telecom ministry said in a statement.

Similarly, several other requirements, which prevents companies from adopting ‘Work from Home’ and ‘Work from Anywhere’ policies have also been removed, it added.