Thaindian News

Bangalore, July 4 (IANS) Hundreds of IT firms, including Indian bellwethers Infosys Technologies and Wipro will remain closed Monday due to the nationwide shutdown against the hike in fuel prices.
“As a precaution, we have given Monday off to our employees working in the Bangalore campus. They will compensate by working on Saturday (July 10),” Infosys Chief Executive Krish Gopalakrishnan told IANS.

The global software major, however, made arrangements for employees working on essential projects and business process outsourcing (BPO) services to work during the day, when the shutdown will be observed from dawn to dusk.

“We have made arrangement for those software engineers handling key projects for overnight stay and transport to essential staff on day shift,” Gopalakrishnan said.

The $4.8-billion Infosys has its largest software development park in the electronics city, about 30 km from here, where about 16,000 employees work in its sprawling campus.

Similarly, Wipro, which has two software development parks in the electronics city and on the city’s outskirts, declared a holiday, directing its employees to report for duty July 10 in lieu of Monday.

“We have declared a holiday for our employees July 5 in view of the nationwide shutdown. They have been asked to work July 10 though it’s a weekend,” Wipro Executive Vice-President Suresh Senapaty said.

The country’s largest IT bellwether - Tata Consulting Services (TCS) was yet to decide whether to give off or not to its employees working in the Bangalore software development centre at Whitefield, about 20 km from the city.

“We will let you know later. There is no decision yet. In case we decide to declare holiday, the employees will be duly intimated by e-mail and sms,” a company official said.

Due to uncertainty of public transport by the state-run Bangalore Metropolitan Corporation (BMTC), hundreds of small and medium enterprises in IT and biotech sectors have extended the weekend holiday to their employees up to Monday.

“With auto-rickshaw and taxi associations deciding to not to ply in support of the shutdown, we have asked our employees to stay back in the absence of official information on public transport being available,” Deepk Chandra of a start-up IT firm in the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) said.

As a precautionary measure, several multinational firms have also decided to give an off Monday and ask their employees to compensate by working on a Saturday.

The nationwide shutdown has been called by the leading opposition parties, including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is the ruling party in this southern state for the first time, the Janata Dal-United and the Left parties.