Our Bureau

Bangalore , Feb 22

IT'S business as usual for the IT and BPO firms in the country even as reports of avian bird flu scare pour in from different States.

Companies that Business Line spoke to said that their business was not impacted in any way as of now. However, they are taking preventive measures by being in touch with clients and their employees.

"It's too early to assess and there is no impact at this point," said Mr V. Balakrishnan, Senior Vice-President, Finance and Administration, Infosys Technologies Ltd. "Our clients know what's happening here and their visits are on schedule". Infosys has asked its employees to take preventive measures and has stopped serving chicken at cafeterias on its campuses across the country.

iGATE Global said the avian flu had not impacted its operations in any way. "We expect six client delegations over the next 15 days and their programme is on schedule," said Mr Mohan Sekhar, Chief Delivery Officer. . "It's business as usual for us and we saw some four clients visiting us in the past few weeks," he added. iGATE has also stopped serving chicken dishes at its campuses.

A spokesperson for Tata Consultancy Services said that the company had started educating its employees through the Intranet and mailers about safety procedures to be adopted. TCS has not seen any impact on its client visits due to the outbreak, he said. "There's no panic as of now as there are no confirmed human outbreak and the avian bird flu scare has been largely localised to a particular area in Maharashtra," he said.

It may be recalled that the Indian IT industry had hit the panic button a couple of years ago when the outbreak of SARS in the South Asian region had restricted the movement of clients and also the employees.

However, the US embassy in an advisory has asked American Citizens to stay away from those areas identified by the Maharashtra Government as being affected by avian influenza.

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu Business Line