Chowringhee: The fire-ravaged Jeevan Sudha building on Chowringhee remained out of bounds on Friday, with no power supply.

State Bank of India, which has its foreign exchange division in the 19-storey building, had to relocate personnel and processes to keep operations running.

The fire on the three top floors of the building damaged office furniture, computer peripherals and allied IT equipment, SBI officials said. An "operation recovery mechanism" is said to have helped the bank avert a crisis.

The bank has temporarily shifted some of the 300-odd employees who worked from Jeevan Sudha to Strand Road while others, including those of the NRI branch, are working out of the adjoining Jeevan Deep building. Notices have been slapped at the entrance of Jeevan Sudha building, redirecting customers to the building next door for transactions.

"It's a skeletal set-up out here and we are trying to maintain basic banking services such as ATM withdrawal," said Rajiv Ranjan, the deputy general manager of the NRI branch.

Insiders said it would take time for normal operations, including currency exchange, to resume. "The exchange rates are determined by our operators and sent to us online. Since the server room at Jeevan Sudha is gutted, we are unable to convert currency," an employee said.

The chief general manager of SBI, Partha Pratim Sengupta, said it would "take a few days to assess the extent of physical damage and estimate the financial impact". "In addition to the bank's own equipment, there is also external sourcing. But the bank has been able to continue operations despite the fire," he said.

The Reserve Bank of India has put in place guidelines on information security, electronic banking, technology risk management and cyber fraud that specify common strategies for data protection, including replication of data to off-site location. In this case, SBI has been able to start operations from the disaster recovery site at its regional headquarters on Strand Road.

"These days, with the advent of cloud computing technology, it is possible to back up critical information and run them from a different location in case of a natural disaster. The inconvenience of the old days has to a large extent been addressed by technology," a former SBI executive said.

SBI sources said the bank had put in place a comprehensive Business Continuity Management Policy to ensure that critical business and IT operations are not disrupted during disaster, while adhering to the regulatory and compliance requirements.