Local IT industry lends helping hand during lockdown period

Business Bureau :

Although, the outbreak of coronavirus has cast a pall of gloom over the IT industry, but has come forward to give alms to needy ones as a part of its social responsibility. The first case of coronavirus has been detected from IT industry in the country. Without paying much heed towards its own future, the local IT industry has donated Rs 2 crore to supply food packets to needy ones during the lockdown period. Anand Deshpande, Founder and Chairman of Persistent Systems who was born in Nagpur has also donated Rs 25 crore to fight COVID-19 pandemic.

“We have donated Rs 2 crore to Divisional Commissioner and will always lend helping hand to the local administration in times to come,” said Amitabh Khanna, President of Vidarbha Association of Software Exporters (VASE). He said, “The country is facing an unprecedented kind of challenge where we all have to join hands and aid the Government to combat with such a deadly disease.” He said, the IT companies operating in the IT Park Parsodi in Nagpur, under the banner of VASE, met the district administration. However, the companies have been allowed to work with 5 per cent staff. The administration asked the association to take steps to ensure workers do not get infected with the coronavirus, failing which action will be taken under the IPC and Disaster Management Act, 2005.

“We need more people to work because we also have onsite project work. There should be some elasticity for us,” he said. IT/ITeS services have been at the foundation of providing essential services in various sectors across the world. This may be keeping the banking services, ATM, mobile banking, Internet banking, wallet payment, payment gateways live and up and running so as citizens across the world do not face hardship for any financial needs,” he said. It could also be in the health sector where life saving devices, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, chemical industries need to remain operational to provide the raw materials, instruments, medicines for the life support required for the needy.

IT/ITeS provide a vital role in running the retail sector from where the citizens procure goods and groceries. Power sector needs to be up and running. Similarly, telecom sector needs to be up and running to provide Internet infrastructure. As soon as the lockdown started, IT/ITeS companies quickly got into action for enabling work from home without compromising on the service level agreements and security of the system, information and data. It was a Herculean task for the large organisations to enable 100 percent of the workforce for “work from home”. However, they could achieve almost 60-70 per cent in a week time-frame, ensuring business as usual for many industries across the world and in India. This new normal is going to stay for some time being for sure and also going forward as a business continuity for any such eventuality. The digital forces like web technology, cloud technology, mobility & smart devices, security in flight, artificial intelligence came into force to enable moving the mountains as was required in many cases for work from home, he added.

Include IT products & services in list of essential services: VCMDWA VIDARBHA Computer and Media Dealers Welfare Association (VCMDWA) and representatives of Federation of All India IT Association (FAIITA) have requested the district administration to include ICT products such as PCs, laptops, printers, consumables, smart phones etc., in the list of essential goods and IT support and repairing to be a part essential services during the ongoing lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic. Even hospitals, banks, police department, railways and other Govt organisations are experiencing difficulties as their day to day failures are not getting attended by any field engineers. To make this work-from-home and this lockdown successful, VCMDWA met Ashish Bijwal, Deputy Collector, Nagpur District and requested him to allow VCMDWA members to open their shops and service centres for at least four hours in a day. Having understood the situation at hand and the critical service needs, Bijwal assured them that he will put the suggestion to the Committee and assured to consider the proposal positively. The delegation of VCMDWA comprised of President Vinay Dharmadhikari, Vice-President Dinesh Naidu, Secretary, Lalit Gandhi and Executive Member Rohit Jaiswal.