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9.40 Over the last year, a number of policy initiatives have been undertaken to drive innovation
and technology adoption in the sector, including relaxation of Other Service Provider regulations
(See Box 1), Telecom Sector Reforms and Consumer Protection (e-commerce) Rules, 2020.
This would significantly expand access to talent, increase job creation, and catapult the sector to
the next level of growth and innovation.

Box 1: Removal of Telecom Regulations in IT-BPO Sector

Last year, the Government undertook a major reform of liberalizing the Telecom regulations in the
IT-BPO sector. In legal parlance, these are called Other Service Providers (OSPs). New revised and
simplified OSP guidelines were first issued in November 2020 and further in June 2021. Prior to this,
the OSPs were regulated under the Revised Terms and Conditions- Other Service Provider 2008.
IT and IT enabled service companies carrying out services like tele-medicine, e-commerce, call
centre, network operation centre and other IT Enabled Services, by using Telecom Resources
provided by Authorised Telecom Service Providers were required to be registered as Other Service
Provider (OSP) and comply with the onerous obligations of the OSP Regulations. The application and
approval processes were cumbersome and compliance obligations such as in relation to the sharing
of infrastructure, work from home arrangements, use of EPABX and internet connectivity, etc. were
tedious and made compliance challenging.

The revised guidelines which resolve these issues are as follows:

l Clear definition of OSP: The applicability of new guidelines is limited to entities that provide
"Voice based BPO services" to its customers. Voice based BPO services is defined to mean call
center services. The new guidelines have explicitly clarified that non-voice-based entities will not
be governed by the OSP regime.
l Removal of registration requirement No registration certificate will be required for OSP centres
in India.
l Removal of requirement of bank guarantee: No bank guarantee whatsoever will be required for
any facility or dispensation under these guidelines.
l Removal of distinction between domestic and international OSPs: The categorization of OSPs
has been done away with and one single OSP category has been introduced regardless of their
domestic/ international business operations.
l 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.
l Interconnectivity between OSPs allowed: Interconnection between two or more OSP centres of
the same or unrelated company is now permitted.
l Sharing the infrastructure: Infrastructure sharing among OSPs is now allowed. The guidelines
allow the use of EPABX at foreign locations.
This reform will provide a big stimulus for growth of IT-BPO industry in India and help in creating
more income and employment.