Nasscom Seeks National Fund For Y2k Bug

The National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) has suggested to the Prime Minister that a national fund be immediately created to aid government departments and public sector undertakings to address the Y2K problem. It has also sought the promulgation of an ordinance to wilfully share information on the millennium bug.

Nasscom has suggested that the Consumer Protection Act be amended to stop the sale of any software product with the Y2K bug. It has recommended that the slogan `I'm-Y2K-OK' be affixed to every such product.

Nasscom's executive director Dewang Mehta, who is also the spokesperson of the I-T task force set up by the Prime Minister, said: "Nasscom's SIG-Y2K (special interest group for year 2000) is looking at this millennium bug problem both for export opportunities as well as for creating proper awareness in India so that the required corrective steps are taken." The note has suggested that every government department and PSU should be asked to conduct a self-audit of its computer systems and submit a report on the Y2K compliance status to its CEO and this report should preferably be submitted within the next three months. As for the private sector, Nasscom has suggested that the companies should take full responsibility for turning Y2K compliant and disclose this to their customers. "It would be immature to say that Indian software companies do not have enough Y2K problems," Mehta said. So far as export opportunities are concerned, software companies in India have already bagged Y2K projects worth $1.5 billion in

 

the past two to three years. As per Nasscom's estimates, India should be able to get export orders worth another $ 1 billion for Y2K projects. In the note submitted to the Prime Minister, a copy of which has been forwarded to the department of electronics, Nasscom has proposed that there should be a standard Indian Year 2000 terminology, including a definition for year 2000 compliance.

Nasscom has also suggested the government announce a `Good Samaritan legislation' for the Year 2000 and declare a national agenda that would pave the way for wilful dissemination of information and its sharing.

"This legislation should also include that on demand of a customer or investor any company should be able to say whether they are Y2K compliant or not and steps they are taking to become Y2K compliant," the Nasscom note states.

The Y2K problem has arisen because during the early years of the IT industry, software developers used only two characters to store year information. Because of partial depiction of year, most computer systems round the world would not be able to recognise year 2000 but rather identify it as `00.'