BHUBANESWAR, DEC 27: For those running scared of Y2K bug there is both good and bad news. The bad news first. Computers in most of the departments of the State Government, including finance, planning and coordination departments, are not Y2K-ready. Nobody in the government has an idea which department is Y2K-ready and there is absolute chaos at the government level over the issue.And there is more of it. The fashionable digital watch on your wrist or the calculating machine at the super bazaar counters may not be Y2K-ready and may start behaving weird on the midnight of December 31. Besides, there is nothing called 100 per cent Y2K-readiness. It might disable your system despite all preparation.The good news is that you might not have to lose your sleep over Y2K as critical sectors like power, finance and railways have been made Y2K-ready. Also, the level of computerisation is so low that the State might just scrape through the problem.``The point is, if you have got anything that has got amicrochip inside then it has to be made Y2K compliant,'' said Dr A K Pujari, chief executive of Orissa Computer Application Centre (OCAC), which has opened a Y2K cell in its office premises. The Y2K cell (Phone no: 503834/504154) would work between December 28 and January 5 and address to sort out the problems that would occur in individual or networked systems. While the software package solution by OCAC is priced at Rs 1775, the hardware package is priced at Rs 2375.``The problem may not appear in the banking, insurance and power sectors in the State,'' said director of National Informatics Centre (NIC), Bhubaneswar, S K Panda. ``All the banks have been made Y2K-ready at the national level after an Reserve Bank of India directive on the issue.``The problems might occur in the systems where there is online application. Though the railway claims that it is Y2K-ready, the bug may just affect the reservation schedule of the trains. Nobody can boast of foolproof security against the Y2K bug,'' he said.
