Bengaluru office-goers struggle in the rains and many choose to work from home
While it took several hours for many to cover a few kilometres, others found it hard to find rides on auto/cab aggregators. Those who had flexible work policies decided to stay home.
by The Hindu Bureau · The HinduAs consistent rains flooded several roads in Bengaluru, office-goers found their commute a tougher-than-usual ordeal on Tuesday.
While it took several hours for many to cover a few kilometres, others found it hard to find rides on auto/cab aggregators. Those who had flexible work policies made use of it and decided to stay home.
“I had to go to the workplace owing to the office mandate. It took me an hour to cover 3.5 km to office,” says Praveen (name changed) who works with a major IT services provider in Electronics City.
“Walking or even crawling would have gotten me there faster,” he quips.
According to him, although the roads in the area saw no flooding, more commuters chose to take out their cars, adding to the congestion on small roads and near traffic signals.
When the skies opened up
ORR woes
One of the worst-hit areas was the Outer Ring Road. Commuting isn’t easy on a normal day in the area and a rain can make the roads a nightmare, note office-goers here. Tuesday was no different.
Meera (name changed), an engineer who works with an MNC on ORR, had to make her way to the office wading through water.
“We face difficulties every day while commuting to work. Today being exceptionally difficult was the only difference. There was flooding, and traffic was hardly moving,” she said.
Kartik, who works in one of the GCCs along ORR, decided to work from home after finding himself in a foot-high water on HAL Road previously on a rainy day.
“We work from the office three days a week. Today, the entire team of five in Bengaluru decided to work from home considering the anticipated increase in traffic owing to rains,” he said.
“Office offers pick up and drop from nodal points, but rains make it difficult to wait there, especially if there’s no shade. On top of that, roads are uneven, and water logging makes commuting challenging for two-wheeler drivers,” he added.
No cabs available, public transport crawls
Santhosh Shetty, who resides in Sanjaynagar and works at a manufacturing company in Rajajinagar, struggled with finding a ride to the office.
“I had given my two-wheeler for servicing. So, I had to look for a cab, but nothing was available for about half an hour,” said Mr. Shetty who finally managed to find a ride at a high price on one of the aggregator platforms.
Nirmal Jacob, who works at an electrical manufacturing company, took about 2.5 hours to commute from Hoskote to Millers Road by public transport.
“Bus from Katamnallur to Tin Factory took about 1.5 hours. From there, taking a metro and then a rickshaw took about 1 hour,” he said.
Companies offer work from home
With the meteorological department issuing a red alert for the city, Karnataka Innovation & Technology Society (KITS), the implementing agency for Department of Information Technology and Biotechnology, issued an advisory recommending IT, BT and private companies to permit their employees to work from home on Wednesday.
Following this, several companies issued work-from-home circulars for their employees for a day or two. A few others advised the employees experiencing travel constraints to exercise discretion and decide to work from home after consulting with their line managers.
“Our CEO offered us a drop and also asked everyone to leave early,” said Sivaprasad who works at Avanti Finance Pvt. Ltd. near New Thippasandra.
A spokesperon from The Outer Ring Road Companies’ Association said that the police is working with the companies and associations to give the right advisories to people and ease out the traffic.
Published - October 15, 2024 07:57 pm IST