It was one of those rare weekdays when the IT hub of Hyderabad, on the western fringes, wore a deserted look with the companies declaring a holiday for election on Thursday.
The gates opening to the vast campuses where some of the well-known names in the world of information technology from TCS, Infosys, Wipro and Microsoft employed thousands of people had posted notices informing about the holiday.
The wordings varied from “All TCS offices in Hyderabad will be closed on Thursday, April 11, on account of Lok Sabha elections”; Infosys declared today is government paid holiday for parliament elections; Gate closed due to election at Microsoft; to just ‘Holiday’ at the gate of Wipro. There also were companies that declared a holiday but did put out a notice at the entrance. Security guards at the gates said not only that company but others too were closed. What this meant was less traffic, a few people on the roads and going without a day’s earning for a hundreds of people dependent on the IT sector for a livelihood be they the cab drivers, those running eateries, food delivery staffers and the likes.
Industry sources said it was holiday for most of the over four lakh IT and ITeS workforce in the city. Only those in roles that were like essential services functioned. In those cases, the companies gave them time to go and cast their vote and in all likelihood get a compensatory off.
Information Technology Employees Association (ITEA) founder and president Vinay Pyaraka said three small companies had not declared holiday and there were also complaints of some employees given permission for a few hours to vote and then come to office. Some were asked to work from home, he added.