IT pros ride out watery blues

IT pros ride out watery blues
The Economic Times

THE RAIN gods seem to be weeping over the crumbling infrastructure of Bangalore and thereby aggravating the problem. The heavy downpour over the weekend erased the Narayana Murthy-Deve Gowda spat from the front pages.

Torrential rains made commuting difficult in Electronics City and the surrounding areas on Hosur road on Monday. It caused the normally placid Begur lake to eject huge volumes of water onto an already water logged Hosur road. The mess delayed several techies who braved the Monday morning blues to get to work from reaching office on time.
Many despite leaving home early to beat the anticipated rush, got stuck for several hours on the road. Some not wanting to go through the ordeal went back.

Police officials said that for most part of the day, vehicles were not allowed on certain parts of the road as it was under two feet of water. Employees of companies in Electronics city had to take pot hole filled alternative routes to reach office. “It was like driving on the moon surface. While we are used to pot holes, weaving our way through craters was impossible. It was agony of the purest form.” said K T Shekar, an employee with a tech firm in Electronics city.

Traffic flow on Hosur road is normally high with the road bearing approximately 10,000 pcu (passenger car per unit). Electronics City and adjoining areas like Bommasandara industrial suburb have around 1.6 lakh employees.

Big IT firms like Infosys, Wipro, HP are among the key tenants at Electronics City where around 35,000 are employed. “Traffic bottleneck started early this morning. Due to the main road being out of bounds for personal transport vehicles, traffic was diverted through the bypass roads which already are in very bad shape.” said Col Mohan, executive director, Electronics City Industrial Association. Companies like Infosys, which at any time have around 14,000 employees working at its campus reported near normal attendance, barring late arrivals.

A few business function executives were asked to operate from home or alternative locations. Wipro has five facilities on Hosur road including a large campus in Electronics City. One of its premises went under water, which on Monday was being pumped out. A company official, however, said that the this incident in no way hampered work as employees were shifted to other work spots.Vinod Ramnani, managing director of Opto Circuits, said employee reaching late to work is nothing new. “Caught in the mad traffic snarl — an everyday affair, many of our employees report late for work. Some have even quit the company not wanting to endure the hassle of commuting. We are tempted to look for alternative locations like Chennai or elsewhere.” he said.