It was yet another disaster management exercise for information technology companies in Chennai as most of the campuses located in Old Mahabalipuram Road (IT corridor), Ambattur and Ramavaram were inundated by continuous rain since last night.

This is the second time in the last fortnight that the IT companies have resorted to emergency measures.

Shutdown

Tata Consultancy Services asked its employees to leave by 1 pm, said its head of Chennai operations Ravi Viswanathan.

The company also invoked the Business Continuity Process whereby centres in other locations took over the critical operations of the Chennai centre, he told Business Line .

Most of the bachelors, a large number of them migrants, preferred to stay put on the campus at various companies. TCS has nearly 1,500 sleeping bags in place.

Wipro provided temporary beds at the canteen to the stranded employees, one of them said.

Chennai houses nearly five lakh IT employees, of which over 60 per cent are located in the OMR region.

Stranded on roads

Gowri Subramanian, CEO, Aspire Systems, which has its centre at Sipcot IT Park in Siruseri, said the situation is getting difficult. “A lot of people had trouble getting to the office and had to go back halfway, including me.”

The company closed the office early, advised employees to stay back in the office overnight if they did not have a pressing need to get back home.

“We are also requesting our teams to take company buses if they have to go back and leave their cars/bikes in office. We hope these steps will help people avoid getting stuck on the roads,” Subramanian said.

While employees have been given the option of working from home, most of them are finding it difficult because of frequent power cut in places such as Velachery, Madipakkam, Mudichur, Tambaram and Medavakkam.

“I am in 24/7 support cell and working from home, but unable to work because of power outage,” said an employee with Wipro.

Related Topics