Cauvery row: Airlines waive off cancellation costs; IT majors shut shop

New Delhi: In the wake of the prevailing situation in Bengaluru due to the Cauvery water issue, domestic airlines including national carrier Air India on Tuesday announced waiving off flight cancellation/ rescheduling changes for some of their flights for a specified period.

Air India said it would not charge any fee for cancellation of a ticket or rescheduling of its flights to and from Bengaluru and Hubli upto September 16.

"On account of disturbance, Air India waives applicable penalties of re-issuance, date change, no-show, cancellation & refund charges for travel from/to BLR & HBX for both dom & intl flts,on all tkts issued on/before Sept 13th '16 for trvl on Sept 13th '16," Air India tweeted.

Private carriers Jet Airways and Vistara also said they have decided to waive off date and flight change fee due to the situation in the Karnataka capital.

"Due to the present situation in BLR (Bangalore), we are waving off date and flight change fee to & from BLR for travel on 13th & 14th Sep," Vistara said in a tweet.

Due to the current situation in Bengaluru, we will waive off penalties for date change & flight change on confirmed tickets to and from Bengaluru for September 12 and 13, Jet Airways announced.

Meanwhile, IT giants TCS, Infosys and Wipro as also e-commerce majors Flipkart and Amazon decided to keep their offices shut in the city.

Many employees were asked to work from home as the companies invoked business continuity plans to ensure there is no disruption to mission critical projects.

India's top three IT firms - Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro -- which have a significant presence in the city declared a holiday on Tuesday. The three IT services companies alone have over 70,000 people working at their campuses in the country's IT capital.

In an emailed statement, Wipro said: "Wipro has declared a holiday for employees in Karnataka on Tuesday, September 13.

In lieu of this holiday, Saturday, September 17 will be a working day for offices of Wipro in the state".

It added that business continuity plans have been invoked to avoid disruption to mission critical projects.

An Amazon India spokesperson said delivery of products has been temporarily impacted, owing to the current situation.

"We will resume all deliveries at the earliest. We haveadvised our employees to work from home today and continue to monitor developments," she added.

Flipkart Head (Supply Chain Operations) Neeraj Aggarwal said the company has stalled operations to ensure safety of its delivery staff.

"We are trying to mitigate all customer impact by keeping them informed about expected delays," he added.

A day after being rocked by large-scale violence, Bengaluru appeared to limp back to normalcy on Tuesday with sporadic protests, even as the Karnataka government decided to comply with the Supreme Court's modified order to release 12,000 cusecs of water Tamil Nadu till September 20. One person was killed and another injured in police firing in Karnataka on Monday. The injured person, who had jumped from the window of a building, died on Tuesday, taking the toll to 2.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said that the Supreme Court order was 'most difficult to follow' but added that the state government would follow it. He added that he had requested PM Modi to intervene in the situation and was going to meet him on Wednesday. The CM announced Rs 10 lakh compensation to the kin of those killed in the violence.