TelecomLive January-2019

[ News Bytes ] www.telecomlive.com 63 Telecom LIVE January 2019 B P O & B R O A D C A S T I N G - B Y T E S qualify as exports and would faceGSTof 18pc. T h e $ 1 6 7 - b n I T services & BPO sector has been in a turmoil since the Maharashtra AAR gave its ruling in response to an application by Vserv Global Pvt Ltd. The authority held that b a c k - o f f i c e s upp o r t services rendered by the applicant did not qualify as 'export of service' and were in the nature of arranging or facilitating s u p p l y o f g o o d s o r services between over- s e a s c o m p a n y a n d customers, falling in the category of intermediary services. Exports do not face tax in the country as they are consumed outside and back-office services have enjoyed this benefit even in the erstwhile service tax regime. The AAR decision has hit both Indian back- office service providers as well as the captive units of multinationals. India has more than 500 global in- house delivery centres, employing over 3.5 lakh. A levy of 18 pc on these s e r v i ce s wou l d com- pletely derail the cost dynamics of the back- officemodel that operates on thin margins and increasingly face chal- lenges from other low- cost jurisdiction such as the Philippines. f r om s e l e c t 30 - p l u s c o u n t r i e s . T h e programme envisages participation of reputed I n d i a n i n s t i t u t e s / universities by way of offering seats for interna- t i o n a l s t u d e n t s a t affordable rates, along with fee waivers ranging from 100 to 25 pc to me r i t o r i ou s f o r e i g n students. India likely to offer GST relief for the BPO Industry India could soon offer some relief to the back- office support sector that is rattled by the recent Authority for Advance Ruling (AAR) decision that services rendered to overseas clients did not be debited from the subscriber's Tata Sky DTH Account. TheDTHoperator has partneredAmazon to offer its service through the Fire TV device. It will provide one device for one Subscriber ID. The device, however, will be the property of the company and will be offered on entrustment basis to the subscriber at no additional cost. The device comes with a service commitment of one year. An amazon.in ID is mandatory for the installa- tion of the service to be completed. Currently, Tata Sky runs a mobile TV app which offers content on the go to its subscribers. The app offers 400+ Live TV channels besides TV shows and movies ondemand fromover 3500+ titles. Call centre for 'Study in India' programme soon In a bid to attract more foreign students under the Study in India programme, union HRD ministry has launch a dedicated call centre. A mobile application is also being worked upon and may be launched before the start of the next academic year. The ministry launched the Study in India programme in Apr 2018 to attract foreign students