minister work home telecom relaxation rules union

Coronavirus lockdown: Centre relaxes work from home rules till July 31The Centre on Tuesday permitted techies to work from home till July 31 in viewof the lockdown. This will require the Department of Telecom to extend therelaxation of its rules which it had done only temporarily due to thelockdown.Sources revealed that under normal circumstances, IT and ITES companieswanting to adopt work from home (WFH) will have to make a mandatory depositworth several lakhs to the DoT.For latest updates and live news on coronavirus, click hereUnion Minister for Information Technology and Communications RavishankarPrasad, who held a video conference with state IT ministers on Tuesdayafternoon said the Centre will decide on the future plans after assessing thesituation.Taking part in the video conference, Deputy Chief Minister and IT, BT MinisterDr C N Ashwath Narayan requested the Union minister to extend the WFH facilitytill March 2021. The Department of Telecom (DoT), following the announcementof lockdown, had given temporary relaxation to BPOs, KPOs and IT companies toallow WFH. .Narayan said, “Work from home requires relaxation of various rules by thetelecom department, including taxes on effective bandwidth, WiFi connectivity,setting up security protocols for the secured on-premise environment.”The DoT, during the lockdown, has eased those norms facilitating WFH culture.We only wanted this relaxation of telecom rules and a rebate on taxes to beextended for a year so that techies can safely practice WFH.”Dr Narayan said, “According to Nasscom figures, there are about 10 lakh ITprofessionals in Bengaluru. If all of them were to come on to the streets towork from tech parks in this scenario, it might further aggravate thesituation.” The DCM also requested the Union minister to hold a videoconference with IT industry representatives in Bengaluru to which the Unionminister responded positively.Stressing on taking Internet connectivity to grass root level, RavishankarPrasad said, “The Covid-19 lockdown has changed the work culture, especiallyin the IT sector. About 80% of the workforce is working from home.Facilitating this further, the government will strengthen Internetconnectivity through Bharat Net project.”