Page 61 - economic_survey_2021-2022

State of the Economy 35

Business Process Liberalized guidelines for Other Service Providers (OSPs)
Outsourcing (BPO)  Clear definition of OSP: The applicability of new guidelines is limited to
sector entities that provide ‘Voice based BPO services’ to its customers. Voice
based BPO services are defined to mean call centre services.
 Removal of registration requirement for OSP centres in India.
 No bank guarantee required for any facility or dispensation under these
guidelines.
 Distinction between Domestic and International OSPs removed.
 Work from home and remote locations allowed: The agents at home/
anywhere shall be treated as remote agents of the OSP centre. The
interconnection between remote agents is permitted using any technology
including broadband over wireline/wireless. The remote agent can now
directly connect to customer Electronic Private Automatic Branch
Exchange (EPABX) /centralised EPABX without the need to connect
with the OSP centre.
 Interconnection between two or more OSP centres of the same or unrelated
company is now permitted.
 Infrastructure sharing among OSPs is now allowed. The guidelines allow
the use of EPABX at foreign locations.
Telecom l Structural reforms
 Rationalization of Adjusted Gross Revenue: Non-telecom revenue
will be excluded from the definition of Adjusted Gross Revenue.
 Bank Guarantees rationalized: Huge reduction in Bank Guarantee
requirements against License Fee and other similar levies. For
auctions held henceforth, no Bank Guarantees will be required to
secure instalment payments.
 Interest rates rationalized and penalties from delayed payments of
License Fee or Spectrum Usage Charge (SUC) removed.
 100 per cent FDI under automatic route permitted in telecom sector.
 No Spectrum Usage Charge (SUC) for spectrum acquired in future
spectrum auctions.
 Spectrum sharing encouraged: The additional SUC of 0.5 per cent for
spectrum sharing removed.
Process Reforms
l  Requirement of customs clearance for import of wireless equipment
removed and replaced with self-declaration to improve the ease of
doing business.
 Standing Advisory Committee on Radio Frequency Allocation
clearance process for installing towers shall be through self-
declaration/ automated time-bound approvals on SaralSanchar portal
of Department of Telecom.
 Self-KYC permitted now through an app/web- based process.
 Paper Customer Acquisition Forms will be replaced by digital storage
of data.