Government allows employees of IT SEZs to work from home

NEW DELHI: The government has allowed employees working in IT and ITeS special economic zones (SEZs) to work from home or a place outside the zone provided they meet certain conditions, meeting a demand of the industry. The government has extended this flexibility subject to conditions such as the person should be a regular employee of the SEZ unit and should be authorised by the unit to undertake the work

pertaining to that unit. Besides, "the work to be performed by the employee permitted to work from home should be as per the services approved for the SEZ unit and the work is related to a project of the SEZ unit", the commerce department said in an instruction dated August 2.

The government had received references from various stakeholders seeking clarification on whether employees of IT/ITeS units can work from outside the SEZ, the department said.

Even though this provision was originally put in place in 2010, an official from Nasscom, the apex body of Indian IT industry, said: "Earlier, the flexibility was given in certain situations like if the worker was unwell but now we have sought this for all times."

The move comes on the back of exports from information technology and IT-enabled services SEZs clocking a marginal growth of 0.77% to Rs 4.67 lakh crore in 2015-16. The government is looking to revive investor interest in such export hubs. The commerce department said that for the purpose of work from home, SEZ unit should provide laptop/desktop and secured connectivity to establish a connection between the employee and work related to the project of the SEZ unit.

The unit also has to ensure that the export revenue of the resultant products/services should be accounted for by the SEZ unit to which the employee is tagged and at no given point should work from home involve the export services from outside the SEZ unit. "Once the employee ceases to be part of the project of SEZ unit, the employee shall be untagged from the respective SEZ unit and the unit shall surrender the I-card to specified officer as per SEZ rules," the department said.