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CyberMedia is India’s oldest tech media house and it has always been at the forefront of pushing new technology in India like Wi-Fi and our Linux initiative in the past. We were one of the first to realize that during the current Covid-19 lockdown, when it came to the all-important Work From Home, mobile phones, laptops, tablets, and other Information and Communications Technology (ICT) products were in fact essential.
Since WFH was an essential service to make sure the Indian economy didn’t come to a standstill, these devices would in fact be essential products. This issue was first raised by DQ Channels on April 9 when many industry associations include ICEA, MAIT, and FAIITA had reached out to Government and urged it to do the same.
Industry body NASSCOM ReTweeted a key report by Dataquest on April 20 urging the Government to expand the list of essential items to include IT items to facilitate WFH.
Why Laptop/Mobile Delivery and Maintenance must be brought under Essential Services@debjani_ghosh_ @nasscom https://t.co/3PK56lG9ZX
— Dataquest (@dataquestindia) April 20, 2020
NASSCOM urged the Government and in a Tweet on the same day, "With most of us working/learning from home, access to basic equipment is absolutely critical. Urge govt to consider basic requirements like office chairs, routers, laptops/desktops, etc as essentials for e-commerce deliveries."
With most of us working/learning from home, access to basic equipment is absolutely critical.
— nasscom (@nasscom) April 20, 2020
Urge govt. to consider basic requirements like office chairs, routers, laptops/desktops etc. as essentials for #ecommerce deliveries.@rsprasad @OfficeOfRSP https://t.co/2sI6CTZapq
Said Debjani Ghosh, President, NASSCOM, "Amen! This is an extremely imp point and we are being inundated by requests for support from employees. BTW, its not just employees, even students need access for online learning. This needs to be an essential service please @rsprasad."
The government has noticed the seriousness of this issue and took an immediate step. MeitY secretary Ajay Sahney has written to the Home secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla "for including electronic products needed from home and online learning namely mobile phones and related components, desktops, laptops, tablets, servers, storage devices, enterprise networking equipment in essential goods category", according to PTI.
Including PCs, laptops and mobile phones in the essential category will allow e-commerce companies and retail stores to sell such devices during the lockdown which is the major pain point of those who are working from home.
MNCs, BPO firms, and IT-ITeS providers are looking at ways to let their employees work from home until July. While the entire nation is working from home for an extended period, it is essentially important that the demand and supply of laptops, PCs, mobile and other ICT products should available to all.
The total number of coronavirus cases has climbed to 31322 in the country, according to MOHFW.