huridocs-tech Slow Automation Saves India From Y2K Bug

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Title: TECHNOLOGY-INDIA: Slow Automation Saves India From
Y2K Bug

By Ranjit Dev Raj

NEW DELHI, Oct 22 (IPS) - India which earned 2.5 billion
dollars providing Y2K software solutions to advanced
countries has itself been spared the millennium bug largely
because of slow automation.

Power lines, for example, will not go on the blink on New
Year's Day for the simple reason that two thirds of India's
power stations are controlled by outdated analogue rather
than modern but bug-susceptible digital equipment.

''Of the 92,000 MW of installed generating capacity, only
30,000 MW is controlled by digital equipment and this will
be Y2K compliant by the end of October,'' said Montek Singh
Ahluwalia, head of India's Y2K Task Force.

Much the same goes for 10 other 'critical' sectors targeted
by the task force -- encouraging Ahluwalia, a leading
bureaucrat with a reputation for being liberalisation savvy,
to declare India is 99 percent ready to take on the bug.

Dewang Mehta, chief of NASSCOM, an umbrella organisation for
private software exporters, is quick to prick any hype:
''The truth is that low levels of automation, systems
integration and computerisation has taken care of most of
India's problem.''

However, Ahluwalia himself and a host of film stars and
sports personalities continue to figure in slick television
advertisements that daily exhort the potentially vulnerable
in India to be Y2K ready.

Ahluwalia said India would prefer to err on the side of
abundant caution with an array of contingency plans covering
all the targeted sectors -- just in case.

That means power stations across the country would,
regardless, maintain a state of alert starting New Year's
Eve and ending on Jan 2, 2000 with hourly reviews of demand
and fire engines on standby.

According to an official report released by the Y2K Task
Force, Thursday, mock exercises are to be conducted in the
first week of November and in December to ensure quick
restoration of power supply to key consumers such as the
railways.

For ordinary consumers plagued by all too frequent blackouts
and brownouts at all times, the government's contingency
plans to meet the bug would seem a trifle elaborate and
unreal.

What is also now most reassuring for the long-suffering
clients of India's manpower-intensive public sector banks
are the laborious multiple entries that continue to be made
on ledgers and folios by clerks in spite of computerisation.

While most banks now use local area networks, centralised
links with branches are still a far cry as anyone trying to
cash a cheque in major towns neighbouring the capital city
such as Ghaziabad or Gurgaon quickly discover.

Outstation cheques, as they are called, cannot be cashed
inside of a month and the large roll-over period is taken
advantage of by unscrupulous bankers who have been known to
use the funds for quick speculation in the stock markets.

The insurance business, so far a monopoly of the state,
began computerisation only recently and exchanges no data
outside the industry electronically -- a cause for its
legendary inefficiency and recent moves allow its
privatisation.

''Policies will be correctly issued to customers. There will
be no business interruption on the internal working of the
industry,'' a government spokesman said.

At least some of the credit must go to the trade unions in
the insurance and banking sectors which fiercely resist
computerisation and possible redundancies of their members.

Nobody is therefore in any real danger of losing an
insurance policy or a paycheque. But the government, again
as a matter of abundant caution, has ordered disbursal of
salaries by Dec. 24.

The real worry at Thursday's launch seemed to be India's
defence, space and atomic energy sectors -- understandable
in the background of India's nuclear tests last year and the
launch of intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBMs).

According to the report, India's indigenously built
satellites, launch vehicles and ground control systems were
tested for waywardness due to the bug as far back as June
1998.

''Even international ground stations which handle data from
Indian satellites have been supplied with Y2K ready
software,'' said R. Kasturirangan, chief of the Indian Space
Research Organisation (ISRO) recently.


As for India's 22 atomic power facilities of which 10
produce electricity, complete readiness is expected by the
end of the month although the latest review on Oct. 10 has
already certified full compliance.

Another area of public anxiety are stock exchanges but
brokers have been warned that their terminals would be
disconnected unless they proved compliance to the Securities
and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) by end-November.

All stock exchanges have been have been ordered to conduct
mock trading and settlement on Jan 1 although the day is
traditionally a holiday. Besides intermediaries have been
ordered to maintain hard copies of all transactions.

''Let's show the world that we are Y2K ready,'' the
television advertisements say. And so whether there was
indeed a problem or not in the first place, India will be
ready. (END/IPS/rdr/an/99)




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