Tamil Nadu continues to reel under the impact of heavy rains. Chennai city, which is being pounded by rains for the past few weeks, was severely damaged including the city’s infrastructure, roads and electricity lines. Several parts of Chennai continue to remain water logged. It has been 10 days since educational institutes have remained shut in Chennai. On the other hand, the technology companies are struggling to maintain balance by ensuring both the safety of their employees and clients’ requirements.

In the past week, tech companies like IBM, Cognizant, Infosys with a significant presence in Chennai have been forced to relocate key personnel and functions to neighbouring Bengaluru and other cities to avoid disruption to business — all part of routine contingency plans.

More unusually, especially in an otherwise parched Chennai, companies had to set up makeshift camps in their offices with mattresses and temporary shower stalls and deploy boats for rescue and in-campus transportation.

Technology companies invoke business continuity plans during natural calamities and disasters, which involve moving critical employees and business functions to safer locations so they can continue to support clients. India’s top IT firms — Infosys, TCS, Wipro and HCL Technologies said that they swiftly engaged their contingency measures as the weather in Chennai deteriorated.

Chennai has about 15% of India’s 3 million-strong technology workforce. Major software companies like Accenture, Cognizant Technology Solutions, Capgemini, Oracle, HCL, HP, IBM, Infosys, Satyam, Sun Microsystems, TCS, Wipro, VMware, Intel, Amazon, Tech Mahindra, IGATE Patni, Bosch, Deloitte, CA Technologies, Microsoft, etc have development centers in Chennai.

IBM, which has at least 20,000 employees in Chennai, moved key personnel from Chennai to Bengaluru. “Our clients remain a priority,” an IBM spokeswoman said, “and we are continuing to provide 24×7 services to ensure business continuity and, where necessary, recovery solutions for impacted businesses.”

Cognizant, which has a significant number of its 219,000 employees in Chennai, said it moved several employees to other centers within the city as well as to other cities and asked some to work from home to provide support to clients. “Many of our employees working on critical projects volunteered to stay in offices to ensure uninterrupted 24×7 operations for our clients”, a Cognizant spokesman said.

The CTS Company stocked its offices with food and mattresses and built a small shower area for employees staying over. It even accommodated employees’ families as well for who were worried about their folks at home.

The similar procedures were followed by Infosys, moving several of its 25,000 employees to offices in Bengaluru and Hyderabad and asking others to work from home. “Infosys has taken several measures to ensure the safety of employees and continuity of business at its centers in Chennai,” a company spokesperson said.

HCL Tech having about 24,000 employees in Chennai flew some key employees to its offices in Noida and asked several others to log in from home. TCS that has more than 65,000 employees in Chennai managed operations and client interactions without having to move people but gave employees the option to work from home or from offices near them. Wipro also gave its 18,000 employees in Chennai the option of working from home.