Infy employees stranded on campus

Infy employees stranded on campus
New Indian Express

BANGALORE: Several employees of IT major Infosys, including Human Resources head T V Mohandas Pai and Chief Financial Officer V Balakrishnan spent Tuesday night at the company’s Electronics City campus.

It wasn’t work that kept them back, but Hosur Road’s infamous traffic! Speaking to this website’s newspaper on the sidelines of the company’s second quarter results, Pai recalled that around 8.30 pm on Tuesday, traffic on Hosur Road had come to a virtual standstill following two accidents.

“Two lanes were completely blocked. We were unable to leave and turned back instead,” he said.

While some of the employees checked into the hotel inside the Infy campus, others were forced to wait for the traffic to clear to head home.

Lamenting on the city’s traffic woes, Pai told this website’s newspaper that the 75,000 employees of Electronics City’s IT companies are “extremely unhappy with the city’s traffic problem.”

“The traffic increases our commuting time by an hour everyday. Even our clients are unhappy with the situation,” he said.

Pai also blamed the traffic for the rising levels of attrition at Infosys and other IT companies.

The Electronics City Employees Association has written to Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy seeking implementation of “drastic measures” to improve the traffic situation.

“If alternative measures are not taken, Electronics City employees will be forced to take to the streets in protest,” he said.

Widening of the Attibele-Sarjapur road and diverting lorry traffic away from the highway might help alleviate the problem, he felt.

The company does not plan to increase its head-count in Karnataka though it plans to hire 9,500 people over the next six months.

“We are full up in Bangalore, Mysore and Mangalore. The bulk of hiring for this year will be outside Karnataka,” Pai said.

Signalling a full-stop on the infrastructure front as well, he said that the last of the Infosys buildings will come up in Electronics City, apart from the proposed campus on Sarjapur Road.