MHA has allowed IT hardware manufacturing and IT repairs during the next phase of lockdown

The Ministry of Home Affairs on Wednesday issued detailed guidelines for the extended lockdown and introduced new points like wearing a face mask in public places will be compulsory, spitting in public spaces shall be punishable with fine and selected activities to be allowed from April 20 in non-hotspot places. The government has also included that it will also encourage online or e-learning classes for students.

According to the guidelines, MNREGA work will be allowed with labourers practicing social distancing and wearing masks, and the movement of goods and empty trucks will be allowed for the delivery and pick-ups.

The Central government, in the guidelines, has also given permission for the movement of vehicles of e-commerce companies and services provided by self-employed persons, like electrician, IT repairs, plumber, motor mechanics and carpenters are allowed to operate. Some industries including hardware manufacturing, unit of packaging material, and other industries in the special economic zone (SEZ) with access control, etc will also be allowed to operate during the extended lockdown.

"Hotspot areas of large COVID-19 doubt breaks or cluster with a significant spread of COVID-19 will be determined as per the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, Government of India. These hotspots determinant zones will be demarcated by State, UT and district administration as per the guideline of MoHFW," Home Ministry said in the guidelines. The government said that IT and IT-enabled services with up to 50 percent strength courier services data and call centre for government activities only will be allowed to operate.

“MAIT would like to thank the Government of India for allowing IT hardware manufacturing to continue as stated in the press release issued by MHA. This move was the need of the hour as all digital and communication highways are built using electronic and ICT products; this was extremely essential as all utilities need these products otherwise imports would have catered to this pent up demand for ICT products estimated at 2.5 Bn USD per month. MAIT had been urging the government to include manufacturing, sales, and servicing of ICT products, including mobile phones in essential services at a time when reliance on such products and services has increased due to the lockdown. We appreciate that the industry’s voice was heard and we thank the government on inclusion of the same.”said Nitin Kunkolienker, President-MAIT.

Similarly, food processing industries and brick kilns operating in rural areas outside the limits of municipal corporations and municipalities are allowed. Manufacturing and other industrial establishments with access control in SEZs and export-oriented units industries, estates and industrial townships are also allowed to operate.

These establishments shall make arrangements for their workers within their premises as far as possible and or adjacent buildings along with the implementation of standard operating protocol given by the government, the guidelines said. The industries will also have to arrange transport by ensuring social distancing for the employee. The Centre has also given permission to operate construction projects within the limit of municipal corporations, where workers are available on site and no workers are required to being brought from outside.

Notably, all workplaces have been directed to have adequate arrangements for temperature screening and provide sanitiser at convenient places on the premises. Government offices, ministries, departments, and offices under their control, are to function with 100 percent attendance of officers of deputy secretary level and above while 33 percent of the remaining officers and staff can attend as per requirement.

Kishan Jain, Director at Goldmedal Electricals said, “We are seeing COVID-19 having a major impact both in India and globally, with organisations across industry sectors being affected by the lockdown. However, with the government releasing the latest MHA guidelines today which allows the measured commencement of work at certain manufacturing & industrial establishments, this has come as a much needed relief to the sector. We are glad that the government is taking the necessary steps to support Indian manufacturing businesses, which will also come as a relief to daily wage workers. Also, with electricians being a very important stakeholder for Goldmedal Electricals, the initiative taken by the Government in allowing them to commence necessary repair work is a commendable move. All these steps will help cushion the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the MSME sector at large.”

According to Mr. Parag Naik, Co-Founder and CEO, Saankhya Labs, “The very first priority should be to ramp up investments in the telecom and electronic equipment industry. We should not just look at investments from MNCs, however the government should focus on making policies that encourage local SMEs and MSMEs to ramp up investments. This can be done by incentivizing these companies to build a local ecosystem. Instead of spending money on loss making PSUs, the government can divert those funds towards supporting next-gen Indian companies which have the capability to take on the world. While ‘Make in India’ is a good initiative, it should be ramped up to focus more on the electronics industry. The government should offer more sops to Indian manufacturers to set up and scale up facilities. Apart from the setting up of factories and manufacturing units, the need of the hour is to invest in innovation. Countries like China and US dominate the market because they have a large bank of IPs. If India has to compete on the global scale, we have to ramp up domestic innovation. We have a great demographic dividend and we can certainly use it to innovate and build an IPR regime.”

Bhavin Turakhia, Founder & CEO, Flock and CEO & Co-founder, Zeta said “We welcome the new MHA guidelines announced by Government today that state that IT and IT enabled services will be allowed to function at 50% strength as well as the permission granted for the production of IT related hardware. Today, India’s IT and startup sectors are experiencing tough times due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which is seen disrupting the progress and future potential of this highly promising sector. Some other measures which the Government should consider include the suspension of Section 7, 9 and 10 of the IBC [Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code] for a period of six months if the lockdown extends beyond 30th April. If implemented, this will surely bring some relief to many young IT startups and help them sustain their business. Other measures include the easing of compliance and filing guidelines for startups by eradicating the current penal provisions, while offering financial tools to help them overcome this eventuality. With COVID-19 cases increasing by the day, and reports coming in that the government might extend the lockdown by a couple of weeks, this is likely to further impact the economy with Indian entrepreneurs bearing the brunt of this uncertainty. We are confident that the government will take all of this into account and consider taking further steps to ensure the startup ecosystem is able to tide over this crisis.”

Neelesh Kripalani, Senior Vice President and Head, Center of Excellence (CoE) at Clover Infotech

The Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) has affected almost every country in the world and India is no exception. To control the spread, the Indian government has imposed a mandatory countrywide lockdown. It will definitely impact businesses. As per the Investment Information and Credit Rating Agency (ICRA), the Indian economy is likely to witness a sharp contraction of 4.5 percent (de-growth) during Q4 FY20 and is expected to recover gradually, to post a GDP growth of just 2 percent in FY21.

This lockdown has brought in the fundamental shift in the mindset of companies with placing more focus on digitally transforming the workplace and building ‘Virtual Workplace’ culture. Due to the social distancing and lockdown being witnessed in almost all countries of the world, the demand for moving business-critical workload to the cloud is on the rise. Workloads on the cloud can be easily accessed and managed across the organization. This gives employees the flexibility to work from anywhere, anytime.

This is an apt time for businesses to move their application and the underlying infrastructure to the cloud and reap the benefits of increased speed, efficiency and agility. This gives businesses the assurance that their core application and operations are functioning seamlessly. It also increases the cohesiveness among various functions within organizations. I believe it is a great step by the government to extend the lockdown to control the Coronavirus (COVID-19). I am sure the government, the health professionals and administration are doing a great job to contain the spread and we must adhere to the government’s mandate in terms of extension if any.