If you thought the traffic problem in the city disgusts only the residents then you’re wrong. A major multi-national company in Bengaluru is considering relocating in an attempt to free its employees of traffic snarls.
The Hindu reported that tech major Capgemini, which has 28,000 people working in their six offices in Bengaluru’s Whitefield and Outer Ring Road, is looking for alternative locations for offices in north Bengaluru. It is also considering relocation to Hyderabad, Pune or Chennai.
According to research by traffic expert M N Sreehari, traffic in Whitefield and Outer Ring Road moves at 5 km per hour which is less than a healthy person’s walking speed. The research revealed that the traffic in Whitefield and ORR alone costs the IT industry a loss of Rs. 22, 000 crore per annum.
This might lead to a similar rethink about relocation among other IT majors that are facing the same problems.
Senior vice president and Bengaluru head of Capgemini Natarajan Radhakrishnan, who had conducted another study on impact of traffic on productivity, said that a number of companies may move to north Bengaluru when their leases in ORR and Whitefield expire.
“If that doesn’t work, they will go to Pune or Hyderabad or Chennai, where there are traffic problems, but the magnitude is much less,” said Radhakrishnan.
“Due to a total commute time of 4 to 5 hours, the average time spent by an employee in office is now down to 7 to 7.5 hours/day instead of the expected 9 hours. This has cost 1.5 man hours per employee every day,” the Radhakrishan's study says.
Sources from Capgemini told The Hindu that the company has decided against renewing the lease of all six campuses, which are expiring in the next 12 to 24 months