Residents of Bengaluru or India’s Silicon Valley have long been faced with serpentine traffic jams as they try to navigate the metropolis. Bengaluru's IT corridors and critical roads came to a standstill on Tuesday for hours after a truck hit a tree near the military gate of a service road near Ibbalur on the Outer Ring Road. The tree fell down due to the collision, which led to massive traffic congestion.
Since the vehicle got stuck between high tension electric poles, it took time to clear the road. This led to techies getting delayed for work. Some techies also decided to go back home to resume work meetings after being stuck in traffic congestion for hours.
Despite being a supporter of the city’s traffic management system, an employee of a large multinational corporation, Chandramouli Gopalakrishnan expressed his frustration after being stuck in a 6 km-long traffic jam.
He tweeted: “I am one of those who don’t buy into the Bangalore always has bad traffic commentary. But today, I have lost it too. My usual argument of, if you wanted to avoid traffic start early, has been debunked. I started at 7:40 am from home and I am still on the road for a 6 km commute. WTH”.
He was joined by other Twitter users as well. Popular content creator Ankit Vengurlekar said that companies insisting on work from office should give their employees a special allowance, calling it the “mental trauma allowance”. Vengurlekar makes videos on issues such as artificial intelligence (AI), creator economy, start-ups, mental and financial well-being. He has over 37,300 subscribers.
Vengurlekar says in the 55-second-long video shared on Twitter: “I think it’s high time that companies start incorporating a new kind of allowance as a part of salary for people who work in Bengaluru and who are asked to come to office”.
He also had other names for this allowance such as survival allowance and poor choices allowance. Vengurlekar said “You can call it anything the mental trauma allowance for being forced to drive in Bengaluru traffic, survival allowance for surviving Bengaluru traffic, or just you can word it the poor choices allowance for choosing to live, work, travel and commute in this city.” He further said that beyond a point, you get so angry that it is actually funny.
Ankit added towards the end that he loves Bengaluru but the traffic management misses the mark big time. He later updated his followers that he “escaped the draconian traffic jam” and managed to reach the Third Wave HSR in Bengaluru. He shared the video on Twitter and wrote: “So so so angry that I’m laughing (sic). Dear HR managers of work from office companies in Bangalore, pls listen (sic).”
Real estate professional Rohan Sharma said that companies insisting work from home is a wastage of productive and focused energy period. Sharma tweeted: “Wastage of: Productive and focused energy period; Money used on fuel; pay high rent in an unlivable city, where water is bad, air quality is bad, and migrants eat junk. Just because organisations don’t trust people to work remotely and have to justify their office leases”.
Another user wrote: “Due to being stuck in [this] traffic, left home at 7:20 am, will reach Ecospace by 10:00 am, makes one question life’s choices choosing this profession”. Another user wrote that he walked back home after waiting at the Silkboard signal for around 45 minutes.
The user wrote: “After waiting at Silk Board signal for 45 minutes, walked back home to work from as no autos were ready to quote sensible fare. Is there some issue here?”
While others were venting their frustration on Twitter, some talked about looking for solutions to tackle the messy traffic situation. These solutions included leaving home early, hybrid work mode, infrastructure, and using public transport.
The Bengaluru traffic police updated commuters after noon that the vehicle blocking the road has been removed while adding traffic movement was restored.
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