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To avoid traffic mess, govt asks IT firms to allow WFH till Dec 2022

24 Aug 2021.06:59 AM

By S Lalitha

Express News Service

BENGALURU: With Metro construction work set to start on the Outer Ring Road (ORR), the state government has called upon IT Parks located along this stretch to extend the ongoing Work From Home (WFH) period up to December next year, or stagger the work hours for those coming to office.

Presently, many companies have the WFH option till October or December this year.

The ORR, which hosts more than 800 companies with a workforce of 1.5 lakh IT professionals, is infamous for its perennial traffic congestion.An advisory on this was issued by E V Ramana Reddy, Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Electronics, IT, BT & Science and Technology, to the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) on August 21.

"The Directorate of Urban Land Transport and the Urban Development Department proposed the move to us to prevent traffic congestion. Hence, the advisory has been issued. It is not mandatory, but we have advised them to extend the WFH," Reddy told The New Indian Express.

"The Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL) is starting construction works on the ORR from Central Silk Board to KR Puram and it could take about 1.5 to 2 years. The ORR houses many large tech parks and IT campuses and carries a large amount of traffic throughout the day," the letter said. It will be extremely difficult to manage traffic movement on ORR if IT companies resume work from office, it added.

The advisory urged IT companies to extend the WFH option till December 2022 and/or IT companies to stagger the work hours for those employees working physically at office. "The IT workforce who need to physically attend office are encouraged to take buses (BMTC/company) as they travel on bus lanes," it added.

Additional Chief Secretary, Urban Development, Rakesh Singh said that the public need to bear with some inconvenience due to the work. "We will do our best to mitigate it by completing our projects before the deadline."

Responding to the communication, Outer Ring Road Companies Association consultant Krishna Kumar Gowda said, "Our understanding is that the government is going to issue a revised statement following questions they have received on the advisory. We are waiting for the revised statement and will respond to that."

Disclaimer

Disclaimer

This story is auto-aggregated by a computer program and has not been created or edited by Dailyhunt Publisher: The New Indian Express

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