The hartal coming on the back of an extended weekend took its toll on the operations of Infopark where attendance fell below 50 per cent on Tuesday.
Infopark had remained shut on Monday owing to Republic Day. Employees volunteering to work were escorted by the police from Palarivattom to the Infopark campus at Kakkanad in the morning while some companies had arranged for employees to report for duty before the hartal kicked in at 6 a.m.
Those who had connectivity were given the option of working from home as companies looked for ways to overcome the hurdles posed by hartal.
“The first thing that crops up during talks with potential investors is apprehension over the investment climate in the State owing to frequent hartals and bandhs,” opined Infopark CEO Hrishikesh Nair, who felt that it was high time that the State got rid of the menace.
He said that being forced to work with reduced workforce owing to hartals inflicted loss on IT companies and posed the threat of losing global clients.
Sunil Balakrishnan, Global Head for Development Center Operations at UST Global said that every hartal was a nightmare for the IT industry and urged for a move to exempt at least IT companies having non-Indian companies by treating them as essential service.
“Often companies are dealing with clients who do not understand the concept of hartal. Besides, many of them can hardly compensate for the loss of a day since their contract expects them to fix problems within 30 minutes or an hour of their reporting and hence runs the risk of losing out clients,” he said.
The disruption of work in the State means that companies are often forced to overburden their workforce in places like Bangalore and Chennai.
Hartals also mean tough time for employees, especially those working with smaller companies that do not offer conveyance. The situation is more difficult for lady staff.
“We either have to start early morning to avoid potential blockades as the day progresses or do late hours to compensate for the loss of time. But then that may leave us starving for want of food outlets besides posing, again, transportation troubles,” said Sam Thomas, an employee at Infopark.
