War rooms, oxygen: India’s IT workers struggle amid COVID surge

Workers say teams are working 13-14 hours daily as they struggle to deliver on projects as colleagues call in sick.

India’s giant IT firms in Bengaluru and other cities have set up COVID-19 “war rooms” as they scramble to source oxygen, medicine and hospital beds for infected workers and maintain backroom operations for some of the world’s biggest financial firms. Banks including Goldman Sachs and Standard Chartered, which run much of their global back-office operations from large office parks in Bengaluru, Chennai or Hyderabad, have put in place the infrastructure to vaccinate thousands of employees and their families, when age restrictions are lifted on May 1. Workers at huge technology service providers Accenture and Wipro say teams are working 13-14 hours daily, under growing pressure and struggling to deliver on projects as staff call in sick and take time off to care for friends and relatives.