Hyderabad: Information Technology (IT) employees refusing to come back to work at their offices is “extremely insensitive”, as other employees like taxi drivers, vendors, facilities management etc depend on their offices functioning, said Telangana IT principal secretary Jayesh Ranjan.
Ranjan made the comments two days ago after the inauguration of a 50-bed ICU Ward at the Osmania General Hospital, which was set up by Cognizant in partnership with Round Table India Trust at a cost of Rs. 1.05 crore. His comments did not go down well with many IT sector employees who still prefer to work from home, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
In a reply to a question by media personnel about employees refusing to join back in offices, Ranjan said, “We can understand when they refused during the peak period of the pandemic. Now the risk is minimised and is much less, still, they don’t want to join back is not fair. All I can say about it is is is very insensitive and very unfortunate, he said.”
Speaking about the newly inaugurated ICU Ward, Mr. Ranjan said that “Preparedness is the best way to handle any crisis, including the pandemic. No patient should miss out on treatment due to the lack of medical infrastructure. The effort undertaken by Cognizant and Round Table India Trust in setting up this ICU ward at Osmania General Hospital is commendable, and their initiative will enable the government hospital in dealing with any future wave and help mitigate the crisis.
“The new 50-bed ICU ward in Telangana will ensure the most vulnerable receive timely care and attention,” said Sailaja Josyula, Global Delivery Head in Cognizant’s Banking & Financial Services Practice. The new 50-bed hospital block will come as a boon to Osmania hospital, given that it faces several infrastructure issues, including lack of space and beds.