Coronavirus Outbreak: Tech giants withdraw into shell

With 29 cases of coronavirus in India, the tech industry in India is withdrawing into a shell, with Paytm, Nearbuy, Wipro, TCS and HCL announcing an action plan to safeguard their employees.

Nearbuy, which claims to be India’s first hyper-local online platform that enables customers and local merchants to discover and engage with each other, has decided to close its Gurugram office for at least 14 days as a precautionary measure. The company has told its employees to work from home during the period and also keep a proper check on their health.

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'Advised our employees to be vigilant'

Global giant in software, Wipro also on Wednesday announced that it has suspended employee travel to coronavirus-stricken China, Hong Kong, and Macau, the company said on Wednesday.

The company also said any employee who has travelled to an affected place in China in the last few days has been advised to work from home for 14 days before resuming work in the office.

"We have advised our employees to be vigilant, especially those based in China and those who have visited the country recently," said Wipro.

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Another global giant in software Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) also claimed that it was working closely with all relevant global and regional and local health institutions to tackle the COVID-19 outbreak. 

While HCL Technologies said it has invoked an epidemic contingency plan in the impacted geographies and is providing full support to employees, wherever possible.

Meanwhile, one of India's leading digital payment banks Paytm on Wednesday decided to shut its offices in Gurugram and Noida for at least two days after one of its employees who had recently travelled to Italy was tested positive with COVID-19.

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In an official statement, the company informed that it has suggested team members of the COVID-19 patient get their health tests done immediately, while all their offices will remain shut for sanitising purposes. 

"We have also advised all our colleagues to work from home for a couple of days while we get our offices sanitized," a Paytm spokesperson.

In India, as many as 30 confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been reported in India till Wednesday.

Till now globally, a total of 90,893 cases of COVID-19 infections and 3,110 deaths, mostly in China, have been reported.

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