Majority of IT, BT staff must work from home: Minister

C N Ashwath Narayan

Deputy Chief Minister Dr C N Ashwath Narayan interacts with IT industry heads through video-conferencing on work-from-home options for employees over the Covid-19 scare on Friday. DH PHOTO/S K Dinesh

All IT-BT employees, except those deployed on critical missions and essential services, must work from home to reduce the transmission of Covid-19, Deputy Chief Minister C N Ashwath Narayan has said.

And in order to facilitate work-from-home, the government has asked Bescom and internet service providers to ensure uninterrupted power supply and data connectivity.

Ashwath Narayana announced the measures at a meeting with the heads of various IT, BT companies and startups to contain the pandemic on Friday. He did video-conferencing with IT Vision Group Kris Gopalakrishnan, Biocon Chairperson Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Nasscom Chairperson Debajani Ghosh and others. The meeting also discussed the possibilities of locally developing test kits and an app to provide care for those who are infected or under quarantine.

Companies were also asked to include developing policies and procedures for employees to report when they are sick or experience symptoms, maintaining flexible leave policies that permit employees to self-quarantine, identification and isolation of potentially infectious individuals and advising older, pregnant employees and those with underlying medical conditions to take extra precautions.

Shaw suggested building a separate hospital for the prevention and control of such epidemics. “The industry will support and provide the necessary assistance using CSR funds,” she said.

On providing consultation to patients via telemedicine technology, medical expert Dr K N Shridhar said test kits were being imported for disease detection. “Such kits are being developed domestically with the help of the IISc and will be available soon,” he added.