IT industry not keen on shutdown on poll day

Hyderabad: The Election Commission will be directing I-T and pharma companies to declare December 7, polling day, as a holiday.

Chief Electoral Officer Rajat Kumar said a letter would be sent across to the heads of these companies, to give a holiday as per the Representation of People’s Act.

He said, “As part of the enrolment drive, we focused on registering non-local voters and first time voters. This has added 6 lakh voters to the enrolment. It is important to get the urban elite to vote to reach a target for 60 per cent voter turnout in Hyderabad.”

It may be a tall task. The GHMC elections in 2016 saw about 45 per cent turnout, which fell to 37 per cent in Madhapur. 

In 2014, Hyderabad registered 53 per cent voting against 72 per cent for the rest of the state. In 2009, only 58 per cent of Hyderabad voted.

While I-T associations and companies are encouraging techies to cast their vote, Industry experts expressed apprehensions over complete shutdown of services. Since IT companies come under the Essential Services Maintenance Act, where in critical businesses cannot be shutdown, certain exemptions will be sought for specific roles like networking team.

Mr Bharani Kumar Aroll, general secretary of Cyberabad Security Council, said, “The mandate by the EC will be respected and techies will be given a holiday. However the industry may approach the government regarding critical infrastructure roles seeking certain exemptions. Critical businesses are where companies have contract often with US firms of 24X7 support which cannot be shut down.”

Such voters will be given flexibility to cast their vote by deploying them in early shift or return to work or work from home based on nature of work. 

Often these techies work in network operations centres or server support.

Mr Sandeep Kumar Makthala of Telangana I-T Association said, “People who write programs or developers are not required throughout the day, but the presence of techies who provide server support is required. In the city, about 25 per cent of techies provide such support services”

He said if there were employees who were not being given an off to cast their votes, they could reach out to the association.