March 29, 1999
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COMPUTERS The Y2K Panic From blackouts to financial turmoil, Indian faces breakdowns if a computer bug isn't fixed. A frantic effort is on, but is it too late? By Samar Halarnkar and Robin Abreu
As angry, distressed people huddled indoors, Kohli headed for the bank. He wanted to withdraw Rs 20,000 to buy a generator just in case the blackout continued. But at the bank, confusion reigned. "Sorry sir, account information, interest payments -- everything is going haywire," said the hassled manager. Irritated and puzzled, Kohli walked out when he saw a single television running on a generator in a shop window. The news was on, and a grim newsreader was reporting that stock exchanges had stopped trading, hospitals were struggling with malfunctioning life-support equipment and there was chaos at railway stations and airports as reservation computers went awry. Dumbfounded, Kohli shook his head: Was India going mad? Okay, so this a doomsday scenario, but many of these visions could be frighteningly close to reality, if a glitch in millions of computers nationwide isn't fixed before January 1, 2000, the day beyond which many computers can't count the years because of an old programming error. As the world desperately tries to fix the millennium bug -- a now giant problem that has fearful nations splurging billions of dollars to stop a predicted economic upheaval -- India is being rudely awakened to the chaos that could strike when the year 2000, or Y2K, rolls in. Doomsayers are criticised for their alarmist visions of Y2K catastrophe: from power shortage to critical defence and surveillance equipment going on the blink. They could be wrong of course. But what if they are right? The problem is no one knows for sure. "Let us be alarmist. Otherwise people won't wake up," says N. Seshagiri, special secretary and director of the National Informatics Centre (NIC). He estimates there could be some 500 million chips in India: from those in personal computers to the so-called embedded chips controlling a range of devices from power plants to dialysis units. "Of these 1 per cent surely have the Y2K bug," he observes. "That means there are five million chips we have to find and fix." Seshagiri has issued public warnings of India's unpreparedness -- to the extent of once saying that army and air force missiles could launch themselves on D-day. Hyperbole perhaps but a notoriously cautious government's urgency is evident. "Act now! Keep the millennium bug out or prepare to go out of business," warns one of a series of advertisements released by the Department of Electronics (DoE) in major newspapers. A special US Senate committee report released on March 2 predicts an estimated 50 per cent of computer systems will face interruptions from Y2K failure in India when the third millennium dawns. An accompanying scorecard of Y2K readiness puts India behind schedule by 16 per cent as far as the repair plan goes. But for "work in progress", India is more than 25 per cent behind schedule, a stage after which it becomes virtually impossible to put things back on track. "We sent our professionals abroad to solve others' problems while our own was ignored," admits Ravindra Gupta, secretary, DoE and the Government's Y2K point man. Indian companies have already earned more than Rs 4,200 crore in the frenetic race to provide Y2K solutions to the overwhelmingly computer-dependent West. True, we don't need to take to the caves as Y2K alarmists are doing in the U.S. "The quantum of our problem is much less," notes Gupta. "but we cannot be complacent." There is no accurate estimate but Rs 2,000 crore, at least, is being poured in to prepare India's computers for the new millennium. It's just a start. Worldwide, experience shows that as awareness spreads and the real work begins, the costs start to soar. In Spain for example, the estimated Y2K budget jumped by nearly 400 per cent between April and October 1998. The Centre has put aside Rs 700 crore to help government agencies and companies, and Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha in his budget speech said all expenditure incurred on Y2K solutions would be classified as revenue expenditure. "I urge the business sector to avail of this concession and make every effort to remedy the defect ... so that their valuable databases do not spin into chaos." Money itself might not be enough to keep the looming chaos away. The global cost of fixing the problem (including litigation because of systems failures) could total $3 trillion (Rs 127,50,000 crore). Yet, countries like the US -- toiling for nearly two years and are already reporting malfunctions -- are fearful of widespread disruptions from unfinished jobs and unforeseen problems from finished jobs. It is this no-guarantees-possible reality that will make Indian solution providers reluctant to join in the fire-fighting as the deadline nears. "As 2000 approaches, no one will want to fix the problem; they could get sued," argues Shekhar Dasgupta, country manager of Oracle Software India Ltd, one of many companies experiencing a boom in Y2K repair jobs. If the world woke up late to its self-made silicon catastrophe, India is still slumbering. "Just because we were two years behind the West in computer usage did not mean that we had to start two years after everyone began waking up to the Y2K virus," rues Satish Naralkar, chief of information technology at the National Stock Exchange (NSE). Totally computer driven with 2,500 brokers connected by satellite to its central computers, the NSE's worst-case scenario is that trading will stop. "If we had started earlier," admits Naralkar, "this panic would not have arisen." A handful, just a handful, of far-sighted companies began work in time. Others, hard at work now, will hopefully manage some kind of a solution within six to eight months, the time it takes to fix the bug, but this is only in software that runs common computers. The real problem is with the embedded chips, silicon chips that directly run complex modern digital control systems in factories, power plants, telephone exchanges and a host of other sectors. Many just won't make the deadline: embedded chips take up to 20 months to find and fix. And so, the alarm has been sounded in government organisations, private companies and public utilities. Crisis meetings routinely review the work of special teams which are frantically checking millions of lines of code behind software and the more vexatious task of finding, and if possible, fixing the silicon chips embedded in control systems. Chartered accountants are now required to get Y2K compliance certificates from their clients when undertaking routine auditing. The Government has set up a Y2K task force headed by Planning Commission member Montek Singh Ahluwalia. Alerts and troubleshooting guides have gone out on the Internet, in newspapers and through seminars and industry and trade organisations. But there is no magic bullet. Professionals have to first study the extent of the problem, gauge its effects, find solutions and then test those solutions. Testing is the single most difficult issue in the Y2K problem. Software engineers will tell you that new problems will be introduced whenever any programme is upgraded or otherwise altered. "The problem is that work never stops because every few months something new is added, increasing the problem of making our systems compliant," says Rajat Punshi, head of information technology at Standard Chartered Bank. Already tight deadlines will become crushingly difficult to meet. With only eight months left to silicon meltdown, it's a tall order especially in certain critical areas. The sectors singled out by the DoE for particular attention are power, banking and finance and telecommunications. Consider banking. Alarmed by an internal report last year which warned that only 20 per cent of all banks were Y2K compliant, the Reserve Bank of India has set March 31 as its latest deadline for compliance, a deadline moved from December 1998. Officials now fear a run on deposits in December, estimating that up to Rs 1,000 crore might be withdrawn by panicked customers. Though every bank publicly exudes confidence in being prepared, the Indian Banks' Association openly admits that 20 per cent might not make it. As a precaution the RBI has advised banks to be ready for January 1, 2000 with manual backups. What's so complex about the millennium bug? The first software writers who introduced the Y2K problem in the '60s and '70s by trying to save money on costly computer memory (see graphic) assumed the early versions would quickly become obsolete. But software evolved very differently from technologies like cars or watches. New software was added on to old, like layers of an onion. So the tentacles of Y2K are massively entangled through billions of silicon chips and lines of software code controlling them. There are four aspects to Y2K:
The embedded chips are the Achilles' heel. At first glance, most seem to have little to do with dates, like the chips in manufacturing plants: autos, fertiliser, cement or refineries. But embedded chips are multipurpose and could have a time function that is not evident. Like a tiny clot of blood that clogs an artery and puts a patient's life at risk, unknown and unseen. A few such multifunctional chips running a turbine in a power plant could malfunction, shutting the turbine, taking a plant offline. Eventually several energy installations could fail in combination tripping an entire power grid. Below the layers of mostly standard software is a vast range of equipment run directly by built-in chips and programmes outnumbering standard software by maybe 10 to one. This deluge of custom-made computer tongues is especially prolific in India and hard to fix. Even if embedded chips are found, replacing them or repairing their software codes won't be easy. Even if they are repaired, testing could shut down a plant or scale back operations. Power plants, electricity distribution systems or grids, and billing systems are especially soft targets. The National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), which generates a quarter of all electricity, will spend more than Rs 50 crore to upgrade systems and find solutions. "It's a major investment but we don't have a choice," says General Manager S.D. Tyagi, who stresses NTPC began crisis planning last year. But its urgency was also prompted by a World Bank warning to either find Y2K solutions quickly or jeopardise further funding. Hundreds of smaller establishments across India have had no such warning. They must wake up now, but the technical and legal aspects of Y2K compliance are tricky. Managers at South Korean giant LG Electronics' Delhi office who thought they were well on their way to fixing the bug in their 18 offices, 23 warehouses and 42 franchisees nationwide were nonplussed when their auditors demanded Y2K compliance certificates -- not just from them but from the organisations they deal with: the electricity board, the courier company, even the telephone department. The feverish search for solutions is opening up a Pandora's box of fly-by-night solution and compliance-certificate providers whose charges are proportional to your desperation. "There are numerous companies trying to take advantage of the panic," admits Ashank Desai, managing director of software company Mastek India Ltd. He suggests customers look for company reputation and prior experience in Y2K problem solving. The National Association of Software and Service Companies provides a directory of Y2K solution providers. One silver lining is that the select few who did eradicate
the bug are willing to share their experience. Help is available from people like Lalit
Sawhney, head of information systems at Hindustan Lever, who took a year and Rs 1 crore to
trace, fix and test his company's vast network of nearly 4,000 computers. He's now
advising a host of organisations in their race to stay the millennium bug's hand. It may
not be possible to rewrite every line of code, much less find every embedded chip, but if
users understand the threat and prepare contingency plans, Y2K's effects can be greatly
minimised. It's going to take some doing. And then some. --with Sayantan Chakravarty |
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The day: January 1, 2000. The time: 1
a.m. It was the cold that snapped Avinash Kohli awake. The baby was bawling, and the
heater had gone off. There was no power. And it never came on again as the Kohli family
shivered through the dark, restless night. That morning, they realised the power was out
all over Delhi, maybe north India. 
