The ET carried a story today about the Government allowing employees of call centres / BPOs and other service providers to work from home.

According to a recent memorandum issued by the Department of Telecom (DoT), the concept of work-from-home agents has been introduced for companies registered under other service providers (OSPs) category which would have to pay a Rs.5 crore bank guarantee for this purpose. Services like call centres, network operation centres, telemarketing, tele-education, telemedicine and teletrading come under OSPs.

While industry veterans have welcomed the move in principle, saying it would curb costs, reduce attrition, get more physically challenged people into the mainstream, there are other problems that need to be looked into as well, such as infrastructure at home, absence of a tightly controlled environment, and most importantly, data security and adhering to the NDAs (Non Disclosure Agreements) that companies enter into with clients.