In a move that would enable nearly 40 lakh employees of India’s Information Technology and Information Technology Enabled Services (IT/ITes) sector to work from home amidst the coronavirus outbreak, the Department of Telecommunications has announced modifications to its Other Service Providers (OSP) licensing norms.
IT industry body Nasscom and various others have been urging the government to relax the norms under the existent OSP rulebook, under which the firms are required to set up Provider Provisioned Virtual Private Network (PPVPN) connectivity, and share locations of their extended agents (employees) as well as deposit security for availing such services.
The telecom department, in a communication on Friday, announced that the requirement of security deposit for availing work from home facilities by OSPs in IT/ITes firms has now been exempted in the wake of Covid-19 outbreak. It also said that the companies needn’t set up PPVPNs, and can use the secured VPNs for interconnection between the company facility and that of the employees who have to submit their name, physical address and already provided ‘Static IP address’. No OSP, according to the government, is supposed to seek any permission for starting work from home facility for their employees.