DoT relaxes norms to enable work from home for IT firms till December 31

The Department of Telecommunication (DoT) has relaxed norms for facilitating work from home (WFH) for IT firms till the end of 2020 due to the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, outbreak.

In an order dated July 21, DoT, said, “In the view of ongoing concerns due to COVID-19, the department has decided to further extend these relaxation up to December 31, or until further orders, whichever is earlier.”

The order for relaxation, which was first granted till April 30, was extended to July 31.

The relaxation is for the Other Service Provider (OSP) licence, which is necessary for companies to enable WFH. Earlier, Nasscom has written to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to make relaxations around WFH permanent. But the industry is now looking to adopt a hybrid working model on the back of the pandemic.

The relaxation will give companies enough room to extend WFH for all their employees until the end of the year. As per current State government orders, IT companies can operate anywhere between 30 percent and 50 percent capacity.

In Pune, where the lockdown was imposed for 10 days from July 13, companies can work at 30 percent capacity.

However, in most IT firms, less than 5 percent of their employees are working from offices and companies are in no hurry to bring their employees back to work. Companies do not see more than 5-10 percent of their employees working in campuses till a vaccine is found. Indian IT/ITeS industry employs about 50 lakh people.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has made WFH more or less permanent as it does not expect more than 25 percent of its employees working from offices not more than 25 percent of the time. However its peers Wipro, Infosys and HCL Technologies are looking at a hybrid model, where some percent of the workforce will work from office and home.