Strike closes down Bangalore IT companies

IDG News Service - BANGALORE, India -- A dawn-to-dusk strike call to protest against a tribunal order on sharing of river waters brought work at Bangalores IT companies, including outsourcing companies, to a halt Monday.

Last week, the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal in New Delhi ordered a resolution to a water-sharing dispute between the states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The order has angered the people of Karnataka, who want a larger share of the water of the Cauvery River. Bangalore is the capital city of Karnataka.

Most major IT companies in the city, including Indian subsidiaries of multinational IT companies, have asked their workers to stay at home, expecting trouble and even violence from the protesters. Staffers at these companies will instead work on a Saturday to make up for the lost time.

The risk of trouble is highest when transporting people to and from work. IT companies in Bangalore transport a large number of staffers each day to and from their offices.

Shutting down operations for a day does not affect software development work, said a spokesman for outsourcing company iGate Global Solutions Ltd. For customer-facing functions such as remote infrastructure management and business process outsourcing (BPO), the company has moved work to other locations for the duration of the strike or asked staffers to arrive at the office early, he added.

Faced with frequent disruptions in Indian cities caused by unrest and natural factors like rains and flooding, Indian outsourcing companies have spread across multiple locations to enable work to be moved quickly to another location if there is disruption at any location.

We have business continuity processes in place to ensure that client work is not affected, said a spokeswoman for Infosys Technologies Ltd., Indias second largest outsourcer.

BPO companies and call centers also moved work to other locations in the country, while some others also asked their staffers to stay overnight in the office so that they could be there for shifts Monday.

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