In a calibrated relief to the units operating within the various software technology parks, the government at the Centre has announced that the rentals payable by them for four months, beginning March 1, 2020 till June 30, 2020 stand waived. These are largely IT and IT enabled services (ITES) companies numbering around 200.

Strangely, the announcement came via a tweet put out by the Union Minister for Information Technology, Ravi Shankar Prasad. There are 60 centres being run under the auspices of Software Technology Parks of India (STPI). STPI, though autonomous, comes directly under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeiTY). It is understood that the exchequer will stand to lose around ₹5 crore due to this concession. This may help these companies keep running and not contemplate laying off staff etc. There are around 3,000 employees working in these companies.

The Minister’s tweet was followed through with a formal media statement issued by the Press Information Bureau.

The payment of rent has become a contentious issue all over the country affecting practically every sector in the economy. It started with the multiplex operators in big malls sending notices invoking the force majeure clause in the agreements they had entered into.

This was followed by the other tenants in malls asking their respective landlords to waive the rent for the lockdown period. There have been requests from even some banks operating out of rented premises that there should be some concessions on this score.

Here, STPI is a government institution and the impact of ₹5 crore doesn’t sound too high for a government funded organisation to bear. The same cannot be said about every landlord in the country.