Telecom Ministry liberalises guidelines for OSPs; no distinction between domestic and international players

Ravi Shankar Prasad

Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on June 23 announced that guidelines for Other Service Providers (OSPs) have been further liberalised. He added that there would be no distinction between domestic and international OSPs and this has been done to bring in better synergies among businesses.

The new guidelines issued on June 23 are in addition to major measures already announced and implemented in November 2020. The ministry said the guidelines would help the business process outsourcing (BPO) organisations giving voice-based services in India and abroad.

"Today India’s IT-BPM industry stands at $37.6 billion (2019-20) i.e. Rs 2.8 lakh crore approximatly, giving job opportunities to lakhs of youths in the country. Further, it has a potential for double-digit growth reaching up to $55.5 billion i.e. Rs. 3.9 lakh crore by 2025," Prasad said at a press conference.

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The minister mentioned that just like AatmaNirbhar Bharat, Ease of Doing Business is another fulcrum based on which series of reforms has been initiated in IT and Telecom vertical by the present government.

He further added that one touch VNO licences, spectrum sharing and trading, delicensing of certain frequency bands and now next gen OSP liberalisation will all boost the AatmaNirbhar Bharat initiative.

Under the liberalised guidelines announced, main features include:

1) Removal of distinction between domestic and international OSPs.
2) EPABX (Electronic Private Automatic Branch Exchange) of the OSP can be located anywhere in the world.
3) The inter-connectivity between all types of OSP centres is now permitted.
4) No restriction for data inter-connectivity between any OSP centres of same company or group company or any unrelated company.
5) Remote agents of OSP can now connect directly with the Centralised EPABX/ EPABX of the OSP/ EPABX of the customer using any technology.
6) The regulations exempted OSPs from requirement of any registration.
7) No Bank Guarantees were to be furnished.
8) Work from Home and Work from Anywhere are also permitted.
9) Penalties for violations were removed altogether reaffirming the trust Government has in business.

In the earlier OSP guidelines, liberalised in November 2020, the features included:

1) Data-related OSPs were totally taken out of ambit of any regulation.
2) No bank guarantees.
3) No requirement of static IP.
4) No requirement of reporting to the DoT.
5) No requirement of publication of network diagram.
6) No penalties.
7) Made work from anywhere a reality.

The government says that the new reforms will further help the BPM industry to reduce its establishment cost and creating synergies among different companies. It is also looking forward to more and more MNCs getting attracted towards India as a favourable destination through these reforms and hence will lead to more FDIs.

Among other things, the ministry also gave data on FDI during the present government and previous UPA government. According to the data, the FDI in telecom sector rose by 102 percent during the NDA tenure (between 2014 and 21) to $23.5 billion, in comparison to $11.64 billion in UPA tenure (between 2007 and 14).

The same was the case with the IT sector, where FDI increased by 710 percent to $58.23 billion in comparison to $7.19 billion.