Nasscom urges govt to consider stranded IT employees, family for evacuation

Tech services industry body Nasscom has requested the Union government to bring back IT employees and their families stranded in 50 different countries, as the country is set to begin from Thursday a seven-day repatriation drive for stranded Indians in the US, UK, UAE and other countries.

The government has chalked out a plan to bring back 15000 Indians stranded globally with “compelling reasons” to be back in India.

The $192 billion IT-BPM industry body has informed the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) about the critical talent from various member companies such as Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Wipro, HCL Tech, Startek and many others being stranded and they should be considered for evacuation.

“We have been working on this plan for the past few weeks. We have given details to the government about the countries they are stranded,” a senior Nasscom official told ET.

The idea is to bring back the critical talent who have been freed up from projects abroad and can be redeployed on other work by their employers, said the Nasscom official.

The ministry has confirmed Nasscom’s recommendation.

“We have advised them to get in touch with respective missions (Embassies, High Commissions and Consulates in different countries). This time the government is most likely to consider people with compelling reasons to be in India including stranded students, tourists, pregnant women, people who have lost jobs,” an MEA official told ET.

He added IT employees and their families may be accommodated depending on their reason to come back. “Eventually everybody would come but in the current circumstances we have limited capacity,” the official said.

TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCL Tech did not respond to queries sent by ET.

Rajiv Ahuja, President at the BPM company Startek, said “the company deploys Indian talent across major markets for sales and account management, delivery and other assignments and it is providing all the necessary support to them and their family members.

He did not provide details about any specific initiative taken for this round of government-run evacuation of employees.

―Technocodex