Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission on Tuesday changed the licences of call centres into registration certificate in a bid to reduce complexity over opening the business.
The BTRC order said the registration certificate fee for call centre services
and business process outsourcing will be Tk 5,000 with a validity period of five yeas.
The existing call centre licensees will have to surrender their licenses and obtain the registration certificate without paying any registration fees, said the order.
BTRC officials said the commission took the move to ease licensing process and to reduce commission’s monitoring over the sector.
‘If any entity is a licensee then the BTRC has some fixed monitoring obligation and the entity also has so many licensing condition to follow. So to ease the pressure on both the ends the commission decided to convert the call centre licensees into registration certificate holders,’ a BTRC official told New Age.
He said many businessmen are interested to establish the call centres
but due to licensing
obligations they refrained from engaging in such business.
‘If we lose our grip a little, this sector can earn a lot of foreign currency and ensure
employment of the educated youth,’ he said.
According to the BTRC registration order, inbound and outbound international calls are permitted only for call centre service purposes and call centres must not be used as transit point of any sort.
The order only allowed telecommunication network connectivity in the foreign end in case of international call centres
while the domestic call centres are barred from connectivity through international, internet or data network.
It also barred call centres from assigning remote agents and any sort of equipment manoeuvring for such purpose.
Both domestic and international call centres have to keep the call details record for six
months and they are bound to supply the same to the BTRC when asked, said the order.
It also said the BTRC or its authorised representative or any law enforcing authority will have the right of unrestricted access to the call centres for monitoring and inspection without prior notice or delay.
BTRC officials, however, said such move can encourage irregularities in the sector.
‘Call centres can be used for illegal call termination if the BTRC loses its grip. Although the new registration order provides BTRC and any other government agencies full authority for inspection without notice but nothing was made mandatory,’ he said.
At present there are 197 call centre licensees in the country but some of those are out of operation because of many reasons.
-With New Age input
