Govt extends work from home norms for IT, ITES companies till Dec 31

The government on Tuesday said it has extended connectivity norms for work from home for IT and BPO companies till December 31.

The time period for work from home was expiring on July 31.

"DoT has further extended the relaxations in the terms and conditions for other service providers up to December 31, 2020 to facilitate work from home in view of the ongoing concern due to COVID-19," the Department of Telecommunications said in a tweet.

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In wake of coronavirus outbreak, DoT relaxes work from home norms for IT-ITeS firms

Currently, around 85 percent of the IT workforce is working from home and only those performing critical functions are going to offices.

In March, the DoT relaxed certain norms for OSPs till April 30 to facilitate work from home (WFH) amid the coronavirus pandemic which was further extended till July 31.

With the 14-day lockdown announced in Odisha from July 17 in four districts and Rourkela city, Odisha government has asked its employees to adopt work from home protocol using VPN (Virtual Private Network) facility to dispose official matters, a notification issued by the general administration department said.

The notification was issued a day after the state government announced its decision to impose lockdown till July 31 midnight in high case load districts such as Cuttack, Jajpur, Ganjam, and Khurda comprising Bhubaneswar and Rourkela Municipal Corporation area. Most of the government offices are located in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack cities.

During the period of lockdown, the state government departments will ordinarily adopt work from home protocol for their employees using the VPN facility to dispose of official matters in OSWAS (Odisha Secretariat Workflow Automation System), it said.

The issue and receipt section of each department will function on a roster basis, the notification said.

The health and family welfare department may, however, function with the full complement of staff. Departmental control rooms will also function as usual. State IT center will render 24x7 support to ensure uninterrupted functioning of OSWAS and other IT and telecom services, it said.

Confirmed cases of coronavirus in India has crossed 11.55 lakh with 28,084 people losing their lives till Tuesday.

Governments are frantically trying to prevent and put down fresh outbreaks and keep their economies running as the pandemic accelerates in some parts of the world and threatens to come roaring back in others.

Worldwide, confirmed cases numbered more than 15 million and COVID-19 deaths totalled more than 619,640.