News Analysis

IT falters in Mumbai rains

To err is human. So when technology created by man fails, should we be surprised? Following the heavy rains in Mumbai on July 26, 2005, technology’s shortcomings were exposed. Customer testimonials reveal that banks, cell phones and Internet networks performed inconsistently. That said, it would be simplistic to blame only vendors for this failure as it was the accumulated result of poor infrastructure and bad city planning. But don’t technology vendors often claim to be infallible? Mumbai being the financial capital of the country, the impact of the monsoons will not remain localised.

BFSI, one of the largest consumers of IT, faced several problems with their networks. Downtime in head-offices resulted in non-functional ATMs, not only in Mumbai but also in many other parts of the country from Delhi and Bangalore to Margao and Ranchi. Comments Prerna Pant, an IDBI Bank customer in Delhi, “I went to deposit a cheque on Wednesday, a day after the Mumbai rains. But it wasn’t possible because of network problems in the Mumbai branch.” Adds Shweta Jain, a UTI Bank customer in the capital, “I was not able to withdraw cash from the ATM because of system failure in Mumbai following the heavy rains. The entire episode caused a lot of inconvenience since I was scheduled to travel that very day.” Chalapathy Tennati, an ICICI customer in Bangalore, differs, “Customer care was taking more time than usual, but this was only to be expected after such a disaster.”

Banks however insist that the downtime was marginal. “The data centre of IDBI was on an elevated position, as were the power systems, and we had enough fuel to manage,” affirms Sanjay Sharma, CIO, IDBI Bank. Flooding of basements had resulted in disruption of networks for banks, especially those located in the Bandra-Kurla Complex and Belapur MIDC. Public sector banks that had global networks preferred to shut down their systems instead of risking the security of transactions. Their contention is that the systems needed to be in perfect condition as a partially functioning network would do more harm than good.

Silent mobiles

Cellular phones had their own set of woes. Network connectivity fluctuated as people battled to communicate with each other. Although vendors claim that connectivity was not greatly affected, it cannot be denied that massive network congestion was a fact on July 26. Service providers might need to increase switching capacities at their switching centres with as much zeal as they sell new connections. Says Jayant Khosla, CEO, Airtel, “We were able to keep downtime negligible and shifted our customer care to Pune and other parts of Maharashtra when our employees couldn’t make it.” The company insists that it had a strategy in place to counter a disaster of even greater magnitude. By way of consolation, Airtel offered its post-paid customers free local calls for one day.

While solution providers and CIOs are reworking their disaster recovery strategies, July 26 made it clear that technology still depends on sound infrastructure to work efficiently—and that a lot, lot more needs to be done to prevent the problems that could arise in case of another disaster of this magnitude.

—Sushma Naik, with inputs from Vertika Yadav