November 9 2020: The Indian government has formally accepted the concept of Work from Home for the IT services industry and facilitated international and national call centres, contact centres and Business Processing Operation (BPOs) to work with some or all of their agents operating from home.
The Guidelines issued by the Department of Teleccomunications entitled “New Guidelines for Other Service Providers (OSPs)” state:
The concept of Work-From-Home will be encouraged under these guidelines. The WFH has been extended to provide Work-From-Anywhere in India. This facility of Extended Agent/ Remote Agent Position (i.e. Work-From- Home/Anywhere) is permitted with the following conditions:
The agents at home shall be treated as Remote Agents of the OSP Centre and interconnection is permitted.
The Remote Agent is also allowed to work from any place within India.
The new guidelines are aimed at removing "unnecessary bureaucratic restrictions" in order to allow the industry to focus on innovative new products and solutions.
Under the revamped guidelines, the requirements such as deposit of bank guarantees, requirement for static IPs, frequent reporting of obligations, publication of network diagram, and penal provisions have also been removed
NASSCOM President Debjani Ghosh tweeted that the "game-changing reform" signals start of a new chapter for Indian IT and for India as a leading IT hub for the world.
Gaurang Sinha, Director, Go-to-Market Strategy, Flock comments: ”These guidelines not only reduce the compliance burden for these companies, but also encourage them to invest in the next paradigm of how work will happen. Flock continues to enable companies that encourage teams to work and communicate from anywhere and will work to support companies through the challenges of working remotely. In the coming months, we foresee an increased demand and consumption of unified communication platforms like Flock that provides a secure environment for companies to collaborate within. As India embraces a “work from anywhere culture”, it’s good to see the government announce policies that encourage the adoption of these technologies.”
Link to DoT Circular dated November 5 2020