Bangalore bandh: Many techies work from home

BANGALORE: Many IT firms in Bangalore logged out of work on Thursday. IT major Infosys declared a holiday for its staff in Bangalore and Mangalore. "As a precautionary measure, we have declared a holiday at our Mangalore and Bangalore development centre and made changes in our transport arrangements in a few of our locations to ensure employee safety," said an Infosys spokesperson.
Wipro's MG Road office wore a deserted look with most employees opting to work from home. Sourav Govil, senior VP and HR head, Wipro, said work was as usual, without any disruptions. Other tech companies like IBM, Accenture and HP were shut for the day. Some companies have asked their employees to compensate for a day's loss by working on Saturday. Shanmugam Nagarajan, co-founder and chief people officer at [24]7 said most of their staff worked, but some were given off and will work on Saturday instead.
Shailendra Ravi, senior director, emerging markets, EMC, said he was working from home because of the bandh. But it was business as usual at most BPO firms since they support clients across different geographies in critical functions like banking and insurance.