Critical sectors safe

By Alok Mukherjee

NEW DELHI, JAN. 1. It was officially announced today that the country has transited into the new millennium without any Y2K hitch in any of the 11 critical sectors. ``We have come to the conclusion that there will be no long-term Y2K compliance problems in the 11 critical sectors of Power, Telecommunications, Civil Aviation, Railways, Petroleum and Natural Gas, Ports, Space, Atomic Energy, Defence, Banking and Insurance,'' the Information Technology Secretary, Mr P. V. Jayakrishnan, said here today.

Mr Jayakrishnan, along with the Director-General of the National Informatics Centre (NIC), Dr N. Seshagiri, and a host of experts manned the national control room on Y2K from the evening of December 31, 1999 and continued the vigil throughout the night to sort out any possible Y2K related problems in the critical infrastructure sector. The first report to the nation was made by Mr Jayakrishnan and Dr Seshagiri at half past midnight when the initial reports from all the sectors had come in. None of the sectors reported any problems, including crucial areas such as nuclear plants, satellites, defence equipment, power plants, railways and even civil aviation.

In fact, just around the roll-over time of 0000 hours on the midnight of December 31, Air-India had three planes in the air and some 12 over-flights were in the Indian airspace. Indian Airlines, in any case, does not have post-midnight flights in the normal course.

The Information Technology Secretary said today that the roll- over was so smooth that the various contingency plans drawn up for the various sectors were not required to be operationalised. The banking sector also undertook mock transactions after the midnight hour and most of them reported ``Y2K OK'' to Reserve Bank of India which was monitoring the situation in the early hours of the new century. Reserve Bank also reported that all cheque clearing systems at Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Calcutta were functioning normally. However, problems with individual banks, if any, would be known on January 3 when they open for public transaction. Similarly, reports from the insurance sector would also be available once public transactions start on Monday.

Telecommunication facilities also worked normally during the roll-over period and after, with all communication systems fully operational, including satellite transmission which brought the millennium celebrations round the world live to most homes through satellite TV channels.

Indian Railways, which has the largest network in the world (it used to be the second after the Soviet Union earlier) also reported normal functioning all over, including passenger reservation, traction and signalling. In fact, a senior Railway official declared last night itself that reservations were open for March 1, 2000 just after midnight.

Dr Seshagiri said that there were apprehensions about oil supplies from the Gulf region but these too turned out to be normal. However, Pakistan gave some anxious moments to the NIC control room as there was no information on its official website about Y2K compliance. But it later turned out that there were no major glitches in that country too. Apprehensions were expressed about possible problems in Japan's nuclear plants, but the Japanese Government handled the problem with a short time span.

On the cost of the whole exercise to make the Indian infrastructure sectors Y2K compliant, it was said that the estimates were between Rs 1,500 crores to Rs 2,000 crores. But here too, some of the outdated equipment were upgraded, which would have been necessary in any case, even without the Y2K bug.

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