The anti-corruption campaign of Anna Hazare has started taking toll on the corporate sector in the Millennium City where several business process outsourcing (BPO) companies are witnessing low attendance with their staff taking offs to join the protest in Delhi.
Many companies have reported attendance as low as 35%. Adding to the problem, cabs ferrying BPO employees have been reaching late to their destinations due to traffic jams in Delhi.
Most affected are the backend processes related to the countries such as Britain, the USA, Australia and Canada, industry officials said.
Pradeep Yadav, president of Haryana IT & IT-enabled Services Confederation (HITEC) said that a number of member IT companies, including BPOs, have reported serious problem of absenteeism with some of them to the tune of 50% following overwhelming enthusiasm of employees taking leave to join Anna's movement in Delhi.
"A number of companies such as Prime Cal, Frontier Telecom and other have reported sudden downward trend in attendance in last couple of days. As many as 290 employees of Canadian IT company Frontier Telecom with a total strength of 600 have been reporting on leave. If the Anna Hazare episode lingers on further, this would prove to be detrimental to the IT industry and hit its reputation globally. A number of backend processes related to UK, the USA and Australia have been affected in last few days," Yadav said, demanding that the Anna movement should culminate by this weekend.
Manav Bahari, the owner of a cab agency Golden Icon with a fleet of over 500 vehicles that operates its service for call centres and BPOs, admitted that some of the cabs transporting Delhi-based BPO employees were reporting late at the Gurgaon offices following traffic jams there. "Apart from delays because of detours, there has been slight drop in the number of passengers also in the cabs," he added.
{{/usCountry}}Manav Bahari, the owner of a cab agency Golden Icon with a fleet of over 500 vehicles that operates its service for call centres and BPOs, admitted that some of the cabs transporting Delhi-based BPO employees were reporting late at the Gurgaon offices following traffic jams there. "Apart from delays because of detours, there has been slight drop in the number of passengers also in the cabs," he added.
{{/usCountry}}A huge number of IT professionals as well as those hailing from Delhi and working in Gurgaon-based BPOs skipped office to stay in Delhi on Wednesday and Thursday. Some senior executives up to the level of managing director are also in support of the movement.