The Hindu Business Line : DoT may give BPOs more time to register

New Delhi April 3 The Department of Telecom may relax its order asking Internet Service Providers to disconnect unregistered call centres in the country, providing a breather to the BPO industry. DoT may allow these companies more time to get regularised.

DoT had issued an order to all ISPs to immediately disconnect telecom links to unregistered BPOs. Some of these call centres were caught routing their calls through illegal channels, posing security threat and revenue loss to the Government.

According to senior Government sources, DoT may now give BPOs time to get themselves registered following representation from the industry. The Internet Service Providers Association of India had met senior DoT officials recently, seeking 90 days' time for all call centres in the country to get registered. "We told DoT that the order does not help anyone and erases India's equity as a destination for outsourcing," said an ISPAI official. The BPO industry had said that the DoT move could shut down 2,000 call centres, costing 50,000 jobs.

Worried business

DoT's order had also raised concerns among international enterprises, which were outsourcing large parts of their processes to India. An advisory issued from analyst firm Gartner, for instance, said, "the DoT's heavy-handed order forces its own agenda at the expense of the larger interest in employment and international commerce. With increasing global competition, India cannot afford to be seen as unfriendly." The advisory had asked enterprises to immediately check whether their service providers are affected by the directive from DoT.

"Foreign businesses may view such reactive policy decisions as a threat that increases their risk of doing business in India. This may force these businesses to re-evaluate their global sourcing strategies. If the call centres of large international organisations are suddenly inoperable, the organisations are likely to blame the DoT. They will also be much more likely to change their BPO strategies by looking for friendlier markets, or bringing services back onshore, than simply switching to other Indian providers," said the Gartner advisory.

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DoT may give BPOs more time to register