IT and BPO firms to get work from home exemption for staff till July 31: Ravi Shankar Prasad

NEW DELHI: IT and BPO firms will get the work from home exemption for staff till July 31, Union Minister for Electronics and IT Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Tuesday.

The option was only permitted till April end earlier.

The Department of Telecommunication had earlier extended the exemption by one month, but Prasad said the relaxations will be applicable till July 31.

This was a key demand by IT industry lobby group Nasscom, which had argued that it needed policy stability instead of a month-by-month extension.

Prasad, speaking after a virtual meeting with state IT ministers, also said India needed to capitalise on a huge electronics manufacturing opportunity that has been thrown open, as companies look to move of China in the wake of the Covid-19 virus outbreak.

Asked if the government would take extra measures to woo companies to India, he said, "We are not against any country, we are just pro-India."

He said though that products from other countries, especially China, will be screened for security reasons.

A high-level Strategy Group comprising representatives from the central and state governments, along with top industry executives, will be set up to brainstorm on fresh ideas in this time of challenge and opportunity, he said.

The IT ministers’ meeting was attended by the Chief Ministers of Haryana and Sikkim along with deputy Chief Ministers of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka. State IT Ministers from twelve states, including Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Gujarat, Kerala and Maharashtra, were also present apart from the IT secretaries of all states.

Last month, the government announced three incentive schemes -- Production Linked Incentive 2.0, Electronics Manufacturing Clusters, and Scheme for Promotion of Manufacturing of Electronic Components and Semiconductors (SPECS) with a total budget of over Rs 48,000 crore to attract large manufacturers to establish their supply chains in the country.

During the meeting, Prasad urged states to supplement these incentive schemes with their own and pro-actively attract investments.

“India has already become number two in manufacturing, our aim should be to make it number one … A great opportunity beckons India right now,” he said.

States had demanded dashboard access to the government’s contact tracing app Aarogya Setu up to the district level, in order to manage the Covid-19 pandemic. Prasad asked the IT ministry to provide such access to district administrations.

Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar, Sushil Kumar Modi, proposed that if the government develops a digital platform for sharing best practices and innovations of different states, then others could also learn from that.

Prasad directed his ministry to develop such a platform to help scale up innovations of states at the national level.