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Banks, bourses gear up to beat the bug

Neena Haridas in New Delhi

Eleven critical sectors including power and telecommunications will achieve Y2K compliance within 10 days, says the latest report of the National Y2K Action Force. However, in order to avoid any eventualities, the government has drawn up contingency plans including setting up of centralised control stations for critical sectors such as banking and finance, telecom, power and the Reserve Bank of India.

The report says sectors such as banking and finance, insurance, petroleum, civil aviation, power, atomic energy, ports, railways, telecommunications and defence will be Y2K compliant by October end, though external audit and trial of the contingency plans may spill over to November.

The National Y2K Action Force, headed by Member, Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, on Thursday submitted the report, on Y2K readiness, to the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission K C Pant. According to Ahluwalia, India is in a better position to make the transition to year 2000, though there may not be any guarantee of the process being entirely trouble free.

The report states that certain sectors like water supply, sewerage and health which are under state control need more attention in the next two months. However, the report assured that all commercial banks and scheduled urban cooperative banks, which account for about 90 per cent of the entire banking operations in the country are Y2k okay.

The aviation sector is completely clean with radars at all the four metros, Ahmedabad, Guwahati, Hyderabad and Thiruvananthapuram free of the bug. In the telecom sector, all telephones and related networks including those of the Department of Telecommunication are already Y2K clean, though a few switching and computer application systems of DoT are slated to be ready by October end. VSNL too is expected to complete its compliance by the month end. Four public sector units under DoT - Bangalore-based Indian Telephone Industries, Chennai-based Hindustan Teleprinters Ltd, Telecom Consultants India Ltd and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd are Y2K okay too.

On the power sector, the report said over 97 per cent of the country's power generation capacity prone to the bug is compliant now, and the rest will be ready by the month end. Alternating current transmission and distribution are Y2K ready and Powergrid Corporation has assured that the bug will not affect its transmission at the turn of the new century.

As far as the railways is concerned, passenger reservation will be clean by November end, while the supervisory control and data acquisition track maintenance is already ready. All units of the department of atomic energy have confirmed readiness in their operations and safety systems.

Though the report does not contain the status of defence organisations, the area is expected to be compliant by the year-end. And for those worried about the bourses, all the major stock exchanges are compliant and the smaller ones are slated to be compliant soon.

Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha is unlikely to have any problems making the budget this year as the department of economic affairs is fully compliant. Besides, all trading will close on December 30 and stock exchanges will conduct mock trading and settlement session on the first day of 2000 to check themselves. Hard copies of transactions will be maintained in case of trouble.

Meanwhile, as part of the contingency plans, the report has also recommended that the government formulate laws to tackle problems that could arise out of the bug such as contractual obligations, software copyrights etc.

As a contingency plan, the RBI would ensure adequate supply of currency notes to meet eventualities. The banks will also maintain hard copies of all important accounts and transactions and the RBI will provide conditional liquidity support to banks against certain government securities.

Government officials will be paid their salary and pension by December 24 and bank account holders will be given their account statement by December 25.

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