Women join fight for better roads

Women join fight for better roads
The Times of India

Bangalore: After failing to see any improvement in Bangalore’s road and traffic conditions despite the repeated outbursts of company head honchos, women employees have decided to lend their might to the movement.
About 45 women working in the Electronics City area, representing various companies, met chief minister H D Kumaraswamy with a list of demands and suggestions for the improvement of Hosur Road and Electronics City. There were women professionals from companies like Conzerv, HP, Wipro, Viteos and Infosys.
While Bangalore’s traffic woes were discussed at length, the women also highlighted the work-life imbalance that professionals faced everyday causing a huge strain on social systems. Though women have for long managed to strike a balance between work and family, it has increasingly become a challenge in recent times, courtesy Bangalore roads, they complained.
Aruna Newton, who was part of the group, complained about the loss of “the golden 3-hour zone” working mothers enjoyed everyday with their little ones between 6 pm and 9 pm. “And why? Because we spend over four hours everyday on the road commuting back and forth from work alone!” she said. Though some have tried to cope with the problem by opting for staggered timings, it hasn’t helped much. As Geetha Panda said, “Whatever we do, it is sheer torture everyday.”
Rama N S said that in all her decades of working, she had never seen employee morale at such a low. Radhadevi spoke of broken families as a result of parents not spending enough time with their children and tremendous social pressure as a result. Jayanthi, another employee who was part of the group, said the women urged the chief minister to speed up the construction of the Hosur Road expressway.
The CM was all ears to their problems and promised to set things right on Hosur Road at the earliest. IT & BT secretary M N Vidyashankar, who was also there, told TOI, “The women were very happy to get the CM’s time in the first place. And they were happy with the outcome of the meeting. The CM has promised to discuss the projects in detail over the next few days. Measurable change will be seen in six to eight weeks.”