In a notification issued on Monday to the heads of banks, the RBI has stated that the core staff manning the EMCs will identify and establish communication channels for information sharing and decision making with the regional EMCs of the RBI set-up at each of it's regional offices.

A central EMC (CEMC) will be established at the central office of the RBI.

All banks and financial institutions (FIs) will establish institutional EMCs at their head/principal offices, EMCs at the regional level and local EMCs at each computerised branch of the banks.

The move to set up the EMCs follows directions provided by a working group headed by RBI deputy governor SP Talwar. The group held its last meeting on October 6. Thereafter, event management structures were conceptualised keeping in view the need for greater decision making responses and higher degree of decentralisation to tackle the Y2K challenge.

Each EMC would be expected to serve as a focal point for management of any event arising due to problems from the year 2000 date change. From December 27 onwards, the EMCs will be manned round-the-clock by the core staff on a rotation basis. This process continues till January 7, 2000. Again, the EMCs will revert to this routine from February 28, 2000 to March 7, 2000.

The EMCs can be dismantled after the annual closing of accounts on April 1, 2000. Winding up of the EMCs is subject to settlement of all Y2K related issues for the banks.

The CEMC at RBI's central office would function as a clearing house for information for the financial sector during the transition phase. The CEMC will provide feedback to the Government, other supervisory bodies and interact with infrastructure providers at the macro level. It will also provide cross-market assessments of the emerging scenario and promote accurate understanding of overall conditions to foster public confidence.

Channels of communication between the CEMC, REMC and EMCs of banks would need to be identified and communicated among each other well before December 15, 1999. The pattern and direction of flow of information would be according to the event management architecture. Contact persons for the project would be required to be familiar with the event management work stream and have a rapport with their counterparts-both upstream and downstream.