Bengaluru, Dec 11 (IANS): With health experts hinting at a second wave of Covid pandemic across Karnataka in January-February, employees of IT firms in the state would continue to work from home for some more months, Deputy Chief Minister C.N. Ashwath Narayan said on Thursday.

"Employees of IT or software firms in the state will be allowed to work from their home for more months, as the pandemic is expected to persist for some more time," Narayan, who is also in-charge of IT, BT and Science and Technology portfolios, told the Assembly.

The Central and state governments have permitted all IT and IT-enabled firms to allow their employees to work from home or anywhere since mid-March when the Covid-induced lockdown was enforced and extended to contain the virus spread.

The Centre has also extended connectivity norms for work-from-home to IT and business processing outsourcing (BPO) firms till March 2021.

"The government will not insist on IT firms to re-open their offices fully, as the state is not free from the pandemic though cases have been declining of late," Narayan told Independent legislator B. Sharath.

"The IT industry has been doing well despite the pandemic fallout on its operations over the last 9 months. In fact, their technology came to the rescue of people in these extraordinary times due to the virus spread," he said.

Sharat, who worked in the tech sector as an executive before plunging into politics, said with 7-8 per cent of the techies working from their offices on essential services, the industry's productivity had declined.

"As allied sectors like cabs, buses and eateries depend on techies working from offices, their business has been affected since March," he said.