Govt Allows 100% Work From Home For Employees Of IT Units In SEZ Till Next December

The government gave full Work From Home (WFH) choices to the staff of IT units in Special Economic Zones (SEZ) until December 2023.

The government on last Thursday gave full Work From Home (WFH) choices to the staff of IT units in Special Economic Zones (SEZ) until December 2023, amid a debate in the business sector about the effectiveness of working from home.

According to a statement from the commerce ministry, a unit may allow its staff to work from home or from any other location outside the Special Economic Zone (SEZ).

The notification’s requirements specify that Special Economic Zone unit owners must inform the respective zone’s development commissioner of the decision and must continue to operate from the location once it has been granted.

As soon as the Work From Home starts, units planning future Work From Home can send an email notification

As soon as the Work From Home starts, units planning future Work From Home can send an email notification. The notification added that workers who are temporarily ill, are travelling, or are employed off-site are all included in the decision.

The notification further stated that SEZ units were required to maintain a list of any employees who were pursuing Work from home or working from outside the zone but were not asked to submit the list.

The worker must be linked to the account since it will be used to track the export revenue from the resulting goods and services. The notification addresses the provision of desktops, laptops and other devices to guarantee efficient Work From Home.

The notification extends Work from home beyond the Special Economic Zone unit’s previous limit of one year, which could be increased by up to 50% of all employees.

According to Ashish Aggarwal, Vice President and head of public policy at NASSCOM National Association of Software and Service (Companies), this is a major leap toward the ease of doing business

According to Ashish Aggarwal, Vice President and head of public policy at NASSCOM National Association of Software and Service (Companies), this is a major leap toward the ease of doing business. Aggarwal said that because the input from the sector that the initial notification, which was released in July 2022, was causing operational issues, the government has now simplified the Special Economic Zone guidelines to allow IT BPM enterprises to deploy a hybrid model in accordance with their requirements. The sole requirement from now until December 2023 is an email notification without the need to submit a list of employees, he added.

It may be mentioned here that the rules’ guidelines from August stated that if a company’s WFH plan was designed to cover 50% or more of its workforce, the corporation was required to disclose information regarding all employees who would be covered by the plan, as well as information regarding all eligible employees.

Aggarwal added that 85–88% of the workforce works remotely at present. The one-year relaxation is anticipated to enable the sector to slowly establish a steady level of hybrid working with a more equal distribution of work being done from offices and remotely.

The new regulation, according to Partner Tax and Regulatory at EY India (Ernst & Young), Ritika Longaney Gupta, will allow Special Economic Zone entities to hire people from tier two and tier three locations

The new regulation, according to Partner Tax and Regulatory at EY India (Ernst & Young), Ritika Longaney Gupta, will allow Special Economic Zone entities to hire people from tier two and tier three locations.
Gupta said that the nation’s IT / ITeS Special Economic Zone (SEZ) units will be able to contribute much more to export revenue and create more jobs by realising this untapped potential.

Furthermore, Rekha Menon, chairwoman of Accenture India, said this advances their efforts to give their employees flexibility and omni-connected experiences, and it attracts different talent pools for India to emerge as a worldwide hub for digital talent.

Senior Vice President and Managing Director of SAP Labs India, Sindhu Gangadharan, said it helped stabilise the hybrid model. She added that for both the organisation and the employees, this will go a long way toward making the #hybridmodel a viable working reality.

edited and proofread by nikita sharma