Sanjay Singh / New Delhi
The Department of Telecommunication (DoT) has extended the exemption given to Information Technology (IT) and the Information Technology enabled Services (ITeS) to work from home till December end this year.
The exemption announced for these two sectors post lockdown in March end was till July end.
“In view of the ongoing concerns due to Covid-19, the department has decided to further extend these relaxations upto Decmeber 31, 2020…”, said an official statement.
The IT & ITeS industry have welcomed the government’s move. Rishad Premji, chairman of Wipro tweeted: “Thank you to the government for their tremendous support on the new ways of working from day 1. This has helped tremendously in further elevating our standing and responsiveness globally”.
The Indian IT industry has been requesting the government to take a permanent decision where there could be relaxations to allow employees to work from home so that companies are able to minimise their existing rent and real estate costs and adopt a blended model for remote working from office or from the office.
President, Nasscom, Debjani Ghosh tweeted:”Thank u @rsprasad n secretary @DoT_India for strong support for Indian IT. This will ensure business continuity n employee safety.. n also increase our talent pool to tier 2 n 3 cities”.
Since March end this year, when lockdown started, post Covid -19 India’s IT industry has shifted it’s over 90 percent of its 43 lakh workforce to work remotely