From rxpgnews.com
Kolkata IT hub hit by Bengal shutdown
By IANS,
Mar 16, 2007 - 2:31:22 PM
Kolkata, March 16 - With West Bengal paralysed by a shutdown called by opposition parties to denounce the Nandigram killings, work has been affected at the city's mushrooming IT hub in Salt Lake's Sector V area.
'We had to reschedule our Off-shore Development Centre - work for Saturday, which is a holiday in the IT industry, instead of doing it today. Since it's a sensitive issue we don't want to take any chance,' Bikram Dasgupta, CEO of Globsyn Technology Limited, told IANS.
He said tensions were simmering over Wednesday's police firing in Nandigram that claimed 14 lives. As IT employees came from different parts of the city and outside, most big and medium IT companies had stopped their ODC work.
'But the online services which comprise mainly BPO and call centre units have been kept open for the day as these are considered to be 24-hour services.'
He said ODC was basically project-based work and could be deferred for a day.
'We made police arrangements and escorts for the employees so they could come to offices safely,' West Bengal principal secretary of IT Siddharth told IANS over telephone from Germany.
'The IT sector has been partly affected in Sector V due to the shutdown but we always try to keep the IT and ITeS sectors open during any shutdown in West Bengal,' he added.
However, the trade union wing of the communists in the IT sector claimed that the sector was functioning normally in general.
'Some offices are affected and have decided to work over the weekend. But the IT and BPO units at large are open and they are working normally,' claimed Prasanta Nandi Chowdhury, working president of the West Bengal IT Services Association -, which is backed by the Centre for Indian Trade Unions -.
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