Prepare for complete lockdown, ensure only mission critical staff comes to work: Nasscom to IT cos

New Delhi: Industry body Nasscom on Monday urged IT companies to prepare for a complete lockdown and ensure that only a handful of staff members are allowed to come to work to support mission-critical functions. As an increasing number of states across the country imposed lockdown and restrictions to contain the spread of coronavirus, Nasscom, in an advisory to member companies, cautioned that “essential services notification cannot be interpreted to be used for projects that had to be completed in the near term and contracts carrying penalties, etc.” “This is only for truly mission critical work, and any misuse will put us at the risk of losing the trust (of) the Government and might seriously impact the entire industry,” Debjani Ghosh, president, Nasscom said in the advisory.  Nasscom also advised companies to plan the teams in such a way that in places like Delhi NCR, the mission critical staff would not have to cross the state borders of UP, Delhi and Haryana. The industry body said it had been working with members across different states for necessary notifications that would help classify IT, ITeS, e-commerce be included in essential services, and added that while many states had already done the needful, Nasscom continues to be in touch with other states for similar directives. Nasscom also advised members that they should ensure that employees heading to work carry company ids, letter from the company stating what work they do as well as copy of the state notification. “I know there will be an impact on business, and this is extremely hard for all (of) us. But given the kind of crisis we are facing, my humble request to all of you (is) to please support the government in addressing this crisis first and keeping ourselves and our employees safe,” Ghosh said. Ghosh pointed out that during a video call with select industry associations and industry leaders on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had requested support from the industry and asked them to lead by example. “While he acknowledged the need to have bare minimum people in office to support with mission critical work, he strongly reinforced the need for all companies to increase work from home for the next few weeks,” Ghosh said.