No hartal for IT employees in Kerala

KOZHIKODE: The techies working in the IT companies here  did not have the luxury of taking a day off on Friday  during the all-India trade union strike as they had to meet the deadlines charted by their clients from abroad.  The techies were directed by the employers to report for duty as usual as the clients hardly cared about the strike.   More than 150 IT companies  in various parts of the city, including  Hilite Business Park, Government Cyber Park and Uralungal Cyber Park, functioned normally, though the employees faced a hard time to reach the offices on time. 

The worst affected were women employees without  private vehicles, who had to take the help of  relatives,  catch the train or resort to other means to go to the offices. “Since we work for the London company and our major clients are from the United States and United Kingdom,  we are given special deadlines. Hence,  to work on the hartal day was the only option left  though the hartal supporters wanted us to strike,”  said Vishnudath Kuniyil, a software engineer  with  ‘Acodez’ company.

The  women staff were provided transportation  after  office hours, he added. It was embarrassing to go to office on a hartal day, as the day is meant for an off, he  added. A.G. Aliriza,  CEO of Flew Up company here and member of Calicut Forum for Information Technology,  said that the IT companies functioned  in other parts of the state, including Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram. “Hence we decided to be at office,” he  added.