The central government has extended relaxed connectivity norms for ‘work from home’, applicable to the Information technology sector and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) companies till July 31 in the wake of the coronavirus crisis.

Earlier, companies were not allowed to connect office Virtual Private Network to home infrastructure, a rule that was relaxed in view of the Covid-19 breakout till April 30 initially.

However, after a discussion with IT Ministers, this relaxation has now been extended till July 31. The announcement was made by Union Minister for Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad in a video conference with various state officials. 

However, Prasad later specified that the relaxation was not an extension of work from home.

“Wish to clarify that it is not an extension of #WFH.  In response to the IT Industry’s request to facilitate WFH for OSPs, @DoT_India had relaxed terms & conditions for VPN till 30.4.20. After discussions with IT Ministers this relaxation in terms & conditions is extended till 31.7.20,” Prasad tweeted.

Industry body Nasscom said the decision would help IT and BPO firms to chalk out their strategy of bringing back workforce to offices in a gradual and phased manner.

Prasad also assured that steps would be taken to strengthen the Bharatnet BBNL to provide better internet facilities. “Not just the IT sector, all States should give importance to develop startups and research. The focus will be on providing effective E-governance and E passes,” Prasad added. Prasad also said that a national strategy committee would be set up to frame guidelines and solutions to fight the pandemic crisis.

The meeting was attended by chief ministers of Haryana and Sikkim, deputy chief ministers of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka, who are also in charge of the IT department in their respective states.

The minister noted that three schemes — Production Linked Incentive 2.0, Electronics Manufacturing Clusters, and Scheme for Promotion of Manufacturing of Electronic Components and Semiconductors (SPECS) — have been notified by the Centre in order to attract investments in the electronics manufacturing sector.

About 90 percent of IT employees and 70-80 percent of BPO and small and medium businesses in the sector are estimated to be working from home and only those performing critical functions are going to offices.

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