BANGALORE: The National Task Force, which had submitted a report on Y2K to the Prime Minister has recommended that the cabinet secretary personally review the preparedness of 11 critical sectors to tackle the Y2K bug.
''We have recommended in the report that while the critical sectors would be Y2K compliant by the end of October, the cabinet secretary should conduct a review of their preparedness in November," chairman of the task force Montek Singh Ahluwalia said at a function of the Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC). OBC is the only public sector bank to have received Y2K okay certification from the electronics test and development centre in the Ministry of Information Technology.
The newly created ministry of information technology is processing the task force report and the government is expected to accept the recommendations soon, Mr Ahluwalia said. He also said the Reserve Bank of India and the Ministry of Finance have informed the task force that all the public sector banks would be Y2K compliant by this month-end. While the third party certification is not mandatory on the banks, the RBI has issued guidelines advising such a measure to the banks.
It had identified space, insurance, railways, defence, power, petroleum, ports and atomic energy as the critical areas where the Y2K okay was important. ''We have reviewed each of these sectors and are satisfied that they are compliant," Mr. Ahluwalia said. The task force has suggested contingency plans to deal with emergency situation. ''There can always be a small unanticipated problem," he said. The banks have been advised to keep a hard copy of their accounts and keep enough currency available for dealing with any eventuality well in advance of the arrival of the new millennium. The task force wants a clear chain of command to be in place. The task force has also suggested Y2K certification from outside parties.