Sandy shuts down Indian IT offices in US

Indian IT firms have issued advisories and are taking all precautionary measures for the safety of their employees working in the US as Hurricane Sandy hit the eastern coast of the country causing widespread destruction and disruption of essential services.

The IT industry, which garners close to 60% of its revenue from US, has significant number of employees working at various onsite locations across the East Coast. IT majors such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro have already issued advisories with some of them temporarily closing their offices.

"As Superstorm Sandy makes its landfall on the Eastern Coast, Infosys has undertaken requisite precautionary measures for the safety of our employees and continuity of business for our clients," the company said in a statement.

"We have been in touch with our employees and their families to ensure they have with them requisite information on what they should do in case of an emergency. Additionally we are restricting business travel to the region for the next few days. A few of our offices in the affected areas have been closed as a precautionary measure," Infosys said.

As a precautionary measure, the US government has ordered the closure of stock exchanges which include the Nasdaq and New York Stock exchange where the stocks of Wipro and Infosys are traded. Added to this, significant number of BFSI clients of the Indian IT companies are located in the New York region.

On the measures taken by the company, Hari Hegde, global head operations, Wipro Technologies, said, "Sandy has unfortunately taken its toll on the East Coast. The safety of our employees is our primary concern at the moment. We have asked all employees in the affected areas to work from home today as well and comply with guidance issued by local US authorities, who are best positioned to advise on the situation. We have also provided guidelines to emergency management and an International SOS Card, which employees can use to call up International SOS in case of any emergency. Wipro is continuously monitoring the situation and has already put in place necessary business continuity measures."

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