Other Service Providers (OSPs) – Relief for data/internet based captive contract centres
In last 20 years, India has become a hub of BPOs, Call Centres, tele-banking, tele-medicine, tele-trading, e-commerce etc. also known as Other Service Providers (OSPs) as per the definition of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Department of Telecom.
To regulate such OSPs, Government formulated New Telecom Policy (NTP) 1999, and defined the requirements of registration, annual returns, bank guarantees (Rs 1 Crore/50 Lakhs) and agreement etc. From its inception, over 2500 companies have been registered under OSP category in India till date.
To improve ease of doing business, and make India a “preferred BPO destination”, TRAI has recommended to government for exempting certain category of companies like data/internet based and Captive contact centres from registration requirement , retaining it for voice-based outsourced other service providers (OSPs).
TRAI has further recommended that Contact Centre Service Provider (CCSP)/ Hosted Contact Centre Service Provider (HCCSP) involved in reselling of telecom resources, i.e. bandwidth, would require a Virtual Network Operator or VNO license. For audit trail, CCSPs/HCCSPs would be required to maintain a complete log and record of the logical partitioning including the call detail records for at least one year. The CCSP/HCCSP should provide these records to DoT or security agencies designated by DoT, as and when required. Further, physical access to their data centre(s) should also be provided to DoT/ Security agencies as and when required.
Companies providing captive services have been kept out of scope of OSP and they would be required to furnish an intimation only on the website of DOT. https://saralsanchar.gov.in//. This would be a major breather to the OSPs, and they would not be required to have bank guarantee of Rs 1 Crores.
This move will create better environment for growth of the sector making India as preferred BPO/ITeS destination.
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