As the country is observing a 21-day lockdown to fight Covid-19 and people are asked to stay indoors, the IT industry in Hyderabad has shifted work out of the office premises. Over 95 per cent of the 40 lakh employees in the IT and IT-enabled services companies have been allowed to work from home.

The remaining 5 per cent of the employees, however, will require to go to offices and client locations to take care of the mission-critical tasks such as running data centres.

“We have been asking them to move non-critical resources to their respective houses keeping in view the restrictions on movements and also because of the virulent spread of the novel coronavirus,” a top functionary of Hyderabad Software Exporters’ Association (HYSEA) told BusinessLine .

However, parents of some IT employees have alleged that their wards are forced to come to offices, despite the shut down.

Exempted from restrictions

The Telangana government, in its shutdown order issued a week ago, has exempted the IT/ITeS and e-commerce companies from the restrictions. However, given the nature of the virus, the IT companies have decided to let employees work from home.

Nasscom also asked the IT firms not to abuse the exemptions being given to them by various State Governments, and to limit travel only to those who are manning mission-critical jobs.

Telangana IT Minister KT Rama Rao held a meeting early this week with representatives of Nasscom, the HYSEA, Cyberabad Police and other stakeholders on how to ensure smooth functioning of the IT firms.

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