IT companies suffer $60 million loss due to Chennai floods

CHENNAI: Crippling floods in the city have caused huge losses to the IT industry. IT insiders have pegged the losses at $5-10 million for mid-size firms and $40-50 million for large companies. Cognizant, Infy, TCS and other IT firms have been organizing buses every hour to send employees to Bangalore. Around 2000 employees of each of these companies have already left to work out of Bangalore. HR departments of IT companies are trying to contact each and every employee in Chennai to check their status. Many employees are still stranded in their homes.

Apart from IT sector, automobile industry chamber have estimated the possible losses to be around Rs 15,000 crore. According to Assocham, small and medium enterprises, engineering, textiles and tourism sectors have also been badly hit by the flooding.

Automakers like Hyundai, Renault-Nissan, Ashok Leyland and Royal Enfield remained closed on Thursday and industry sources said things are likely to remain "at a standstill mode" till Saturday. What's more Chennai is also a major auto parts hub. So, the floods could hobble production in automobile factories across the country, said industry experts. The seriousness of the situation can be gauged by the fact that top executives, like the CEO of Ashok Leyland, had to be evacuated and several companies said they were working to help out executives stuck in rain-ravaged areas. Top Comment

As Chennai continued to fight back unprecedented rain and floods, the death toll climbed to 450 since the onset of monsoon in October-end in the city and neighbouring districts. With the forecast of intermittent rain, sometimes heavy, for Chennai and heavy rain in the delta districts of Tamil Nadu, Army and NDRF teams speeded up rescue and relief operations.

On day four of the latest round of rain onslaught, anger swept across the city as state departments fumbled with the key task of coordinating among central agencies and NGOs raining relief materials on the state and the virtual crumbling of Chennai's infrastructure. The unprecedented deluge and floods had exposed the city's weak links, its drainage system, poor planning and non-existent disaster management plan.