New rules for other service providers could ease working of BPO, ITeS players

Nearly a year-and-a half after the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India had suggested relaxations of registration, submission of bank guarantee and other norms for other service providers (OSP) in the business process outsourcing (BPO) and information technology-enabled services (ITes), the Department of Telecom eased these rules. The new rules do away with the registration requirement for OSPs, with such BPOs that are engaged only in data work have been taken out of the category of OSPs altogether.

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Key-Points

OSPs or other service providers are companies or firms which provide secondary or tertiary services such as telemarketing, telebanking or telemedicine for various companies, banks or hospital chains, respectively.

With the government recognising OSP employees as extended or remote agent, companies providing such services will no longer have to carry the additional compliance burden of providing the details of all such employees to the DoT.

The doing away of registration norms will also mean that there will be no renewal of such licenses and therefore will invite foreign companies to set up or expand their other service providing units in India.

An important change, which takes data-based OSPs completely out of the ambit of BPOs would mean that such firms can function like any other service firm without the strict and cumbersome guidelines such as presence of agent on location.