The authorities has amended the Special Economic Zones’ (SEZs) guidelines to allow IT/ITeS units in these areas to permit 100% of their workforce to do business from home (WFH) till December 31, 2023 with sure circumstances.
“A unit could allow its staff to do business from home or from anyplace exterior the SEZ,” the commerce ministry mentioned in a notification.
According to the amended rule 43A below the SEZ legislation, 2006, staff of IT and data expertise enabled providers, staff who’re travelling in addition to those that are working offsite can be allowed to WFH or anyplace exterior SEZs.
In July, the Centre had allowed half of the workforce in SEZs, together with contractual employees, to do business from home. Till now, WFH was permitted for a most interval of 1 12 months in an SEZ unit. The flexibility was additionally granted to improvement commissioners of SEZs to approve the next variety of folks to WFH.
However, throughout implementation of the principles, the trade had identified that there have been numerous challenges on interpretation in addition to compliance associated challenges.
The new rule states {that a} unit must solely preserve the lists of staff who’re allowed to observe WFH or from anyplace exterior SEZs. The record must be submitted to the event commissioner at any time when required.
Besides, staff must be supplied with duty-free items, together with laptop computer, desktop, and different digital gear for WFH or anyplace exterior the SEZ, with none fee of IGST or providers tax on a short lived foundation.
“The Union Ministry of Commerce has additional simplified work-from-home guidelines in SEZs after Nasscom made a collection of deliberations and authorities engagements,” IT apex physique mentioned in an announcement.
“This is a significant step in direction of enabling ease of doing enterprise and can present much-needed flexibility for firms working in SEZs to develop a robust hybrid work mannequin for the longer term,” Nasscom mentioned, including that there can be no have to file an utility to hunt approval for WFH and there’s no restriction on the extent of WFH that may be enabled by a unit in the SEZ.
“The solely requirement is that the units shall intimate the native Development Commissioner via an e-mail that they’re implementing a WFH mannequin,” the assertion mentioned.
“Our knowledge reveals that distant job searches on Indeed platform present a rise of 8.6% in June 2022 over the pre-pandemic baseline (January 2020). Similarly, distant job postings have additionally elevated by 7.1% in June 2022 in comparison with January 2020,” Saumitra Chand, Career Expert at Indeed India mentioned.
According to him, this burgeoning demand for distant jobs is backed by the truth that geographical boundaries are blurring whereas employers rent and job seekers aggressively scout for alternatives. It additionally allows MNCs and IT companies to rent expert expertise from completely different components of the nation.
“This coverage comes at a vital juncture when organisations are laying the muse for a publish pandemic future and strengthening their capabilities. It is more likely to have a disruptive affect on organisations and the trade at massive,” he mentioned.
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