The Department of Telecom has decided to do away with the registration requirements for other service providers (OSPs) in an effort to ensure the ease of doing business for the IT industry, especially BPO and IT-enabled services. The new guidelines released by the DOT would reduce the BPO industry's enforcement burden. The registration requirement for OSPs has been completely abolished and the BPO industry involved in data-related work has been excluded from the scope of OSP regulations, a statement from the DOT said. Requirements have also been withdrawn for BPOs, including bank guarantee deposits, static IPs, periodic reporting obligations, network diagram writing, and punitive provisions.

Several other provisions were also withdrawn, which stopped businesses from implementing 'Work from Home' and 'Work from Anywhere' policies. BPO Industry also gets additional dispensations in the latest guideline to improve versatility, a fresh structure to provide India's industry with a powerful impetus, the statement said. Earlier, NASSCOM had asked the government to simplify the guidelines of other service providers (OSP) to reduce the BPO industry's compliance burden. The new structure will provide India's industry with a strong impetus and will make India one of the world's most competitive IT jurisdictions, the Ministry said. With this reform, the Government of India is sending a clear signal of its support to the IT industry with a view to boosting the sector's increased investment, the statement said.