IT industry wants work from home regulation

At a time when the lack of an antidote for Covid-19 has indicated that work from home is here to stay, India’s US$191 billion information technology industry wants revisions in the country’s taxation and labour laws. According to the sector’s estimates, close to 50% of the country’s 4.3 million IT workers will soon work from home.

According to sources in the government, industry lobby, Nasscom, has been tasked with the responsibility of preparing a detailed report on the legislative changes required to facilitate this significant transition. The document will then be circulated to relevant ministries such as department of telecom and the labour ministry for action.

“As working from home catches up, people could work for two or even three companies at the same time. So, the government will need to let employers and workers choose NPS (National Pension Scheme) instead of EPFO as a social security scheme, as in NPS a worker can be an employee today and a gig worker tomorrow,” explained Ashish Aggarwal, senior director and head of public policy at Nasscom. He also added that people may start working for 2-3 companies at a time and hence, the current labour laws will need to be revisited to provide industry the flexibility to enable working hours and shift timings.