Center relaxes regulations for business process management firms

The Department of Telecommunications liberalised the criteria for Other Service Providers (OSPs) on Wednesday, allowing workers of business process management (BPM) businesses to work from home and deliver voice-based services in India and overseas.

The government has abolished the distinction between local and foreign OSPs, which implies that a business process management centre with shared telecom resources may now service clients anywhere in the globe, including India. It also means that interconnection between all sorts of OSP centres is now possible.

“In order to encourage our BPO industry, OSP guidelines that were liberalised in November 2020 have been simplified even further, offering greater ease of business and regulatory clarity. This will further reduce compliance burden and help our tech industry,” PM Narendra Modi tweeted.

The OSP’s EPABX (Electronic Private Automatic Branch Exchange) can be situated anywhere in the world. Apart from utilising telecom service providers’ EPABX services, OSPs can also locate their EPABX at third-party data centres in India.

It also enabled a BPM employee to connect directly to the customer’s centralised exchange using any technology, including broadband through wireline/ wireless.

The government has lifted limitations on data interconnectivity between any OSP centres owned by the same firm, a group company, or an unaffiliated company. It also eliminated the penalty for infractions.

The problem of OSP standards stems from an earlier telecom policy provision that stated that certain types of work (such as phone conversations) may not be transferred to employees’ residences. However, given the lockdowns in both India and client locations last year, the industry fought hard for some of these requirements to be eased.

Nasscom has urged the DoT to loosen limitations on work from home for IT / ITeS personnel, governed by the OSP regime, as a preventive step to contain the spread of Covid-19 and guarantee business continuity.

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