IT firms requested to let staff go out to vote

Hyderabad, April 4: Voluntary organisations, which have been campaigning to encourage people to vote, are now planning to request the IT companies, pharma firms and other industry bodies to declare a holiday on the polling day or at least permit their employees to go out and cast their votes.

The organisations claim that all their efforts — launching websites, organising awareness walks and advertisements — would go waste if the employers don’t permit their employees to go out and vote. “We will approach the Software Technology Parks of India to convince the IT firms to either declare a holiday or let employees to go out for two hours so that they can vote. We are writing to the human resource managers of pharma companies as well. If the firms don’t permit the employees to cast the votes, all our efforts will go in vain” said Mr Sridhar Dasari, a member of response foundation which has set up hoardings all over the city to spread awareness.
A few other foundations too are talking to industry bodies like the CII, FAPCCI, Hyderabad Software Exporters Association and AMCHAM to convince the organisations affiliated to them to let their employees go out for a few hours.
April 16 and April 23, the poll dates, are both working days.
“We are organising awareness walks and have released advertisements so that the educated youngsters, who usually don’t vote, use their right this time. We will meet industry bodies and ask them to organise awareness programmes on their campuses as well,” said Mr J. A. Chowdhary, founder of letsvote.in.