Bangalore's image now muddied even in int'l news

Posted on August 11, 2004 21:11 PM EST

Click here: India's silicon valley faces IT exodus

The condition in Bangalore is to be experienced to be believed.

Most of Bangalore's tech companies are in Koramangala and Electronic City area, right? Electronic City (E-City) is the extreme Southern suburb of Bangalore. Koramangala is in the South of Bangalore too. Both these places are right by Hosur road, which goes to Hosur and thence to other places in Tamilnadu. This highway is THE busiest road out of Bangalore to Tamilnadu. As such, even if these tech companies were not present, this would be quite a busy highway.

This highway shot into notoriety years ago when the then Karnataka govt was totally apathetic to it's worsening condition and the tech companies got so fed up that they sent their own employees to work on the road. This is true. Literally. Employees of Infosys and other companies took road repair implements and got on the street.

Today, despite the much improved state of this road, and a fly-over at what used to be the notoriously congested Madivala circle, this road has gained another kind of notoriety. It is a fact that after moving most of its Bangalore operations to E-City, one of India's foremost software services company alone has lost the life of one or more employee per year on this very road! I don't know about the lives lost from other companies, among the general public and the number of injuries. The flyover at Madivala circle has relieved the congestion at the circle, and simply moved it to the stretch barely 1 km North, near the Madivala market and masjid, I hear.

The story of Hosur road aside, what happens daily is that, thousands of people travel to Koramangala and E-City from all parts of Bangalore. This translates to hundreds of buses, two-wheelers and cars. Because of this heavy traffic to these areas, as well as the general heavy traffic in Bangalore, combined with the bad condition of the roads, just going to work is a chore for Bangalore's techies. It is harrassing and tiring.

People who are not fortunate enough to live close to Koramangala and E-City, easily spend 3-4 hours daily just commuting to work. Can you believe it? The duration of commute is almost 50% of the number of hours spent working in office! Adding the commute time to the 8+ hours one is required to put in at office, over 12 hours are spent just for work daily. And this without working overtime. If there are rains, which paralyze Bangalore traffic quite easily, and/or if one works overtime, which seems to be the norm in tech companies, the 12 hours could even stretch upto 15 hours! What quality of life is this?

I am not defining quality of life based on American standards. All I am asking is some respect for humanity. I believe that the lack of infrastructure, facilities, bad services, most of the problems in India are not because of lack of resources of any kind. It's simply because of the lack of respect for humanity, human dignity and even human life.

A mass transit system, such as an underground railway, is the emergency need of the hour for Bangalore. But I wouldn't be surprised if I my yet-to-be-born children have started to work by the time this becomes a reality.