Information technology industry seems to have learned to live with confusion and uncertainty prevailing in the State Capital over the Telangana statehood issue . It doesn't mean that there are no worries and that it is business as usual here.
They continue to worry over embarrassing queries from clients as they deliberate on deals for the next financial year. Absenteeism because of lack of public transport, too, has become a pain in the neck.
But some significant players never stopped their expansion plans.
“Those who are running operations are going ahead with their expansion plans. They know quite well that their work would go unhindered,” Mr Ramesh Loganathan, Managing Director of Progress Software, told
Progress, the US-based business process management (BPM) solutions company, itself is expanding. The company, which work out of iLabs facility at Madhapur, will open another facility next year to house over 200 people.
Online marketplace Amazon reportedly told the State Government that it would invest $100 million on its facility in Hyderabad. “The industry is expected to add 3-4 million sft of space next year after adding a similar space this year,” Mr Ramesh said. As corporates enter the third quarter, information technology (IT) and IT-enabled services industry is hoping for an early solution for the Telangana crisis .
“The way we hold meetings with our clients is completely changed. Earlier, we used to talk to them directly. Chances of muffling news of disturbances were very high then. Now, they have started sending people of Indian origin to talk to us. You cannot hide anything now,” a top executive of ITsAP (Information Technology Industry Association of Andhra Pradesh), told Business Line .
With a view to improving the situation from worsening further, a Nasscom (National Association of Software and Services Companies) team met the Chief Minister, Mr N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, last week to seek Government help.
It seemed to have an immediate effect. The IT industry was spared from the three-day power holiday declared by the Government to tide over the power crisis following severe fall in coal production, as Singareni Collieries employees joined the general strike in the Telangana region.