Gurgaon: save us from toll virus, say IT-BPO firms - Hindustan Times
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Gurgaon: save us from toll virus, say IT-BPO firms

Hindustan Times | ByDeevakar Anand, Gurgaon
Aug 03, 2013 12:42 AM IST

Despite housing offices of 250 Fortune500 companies and several others, Gurgaon is fast becoming an uncompetitive business destination, thanks to the slow lanes of the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway. Deevakar Anand reports.

Despite housing offices of 250 Fortune500 companies and several others, Gurgaon is fast becoming an uncompetitive business destination, thanks to the slow lanes of the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway.

The companies here suffer losses in terms of extra transportation costs due to the traffic bottlenecks on the expressway and its toll plazas, say leaders of the Information Technology and Business Process Management (IT-BPM) industry.

Thousands of IT-BPM cabs get stuck at the Sirhaul toll plaza in the absence of effective management.

Waiting at the toll plaza results in extra fuel cost, besides adding to the already-high air pollution levels, says Subinder Khurana, chief operating officer of Gurgaon-based BankSmarts Solutions.

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However, the larger loss is the disruption of the work-life balance of employees who end up waiting at the toll plaza for hours. “This affects their productivity and results in business loss for us,” said Khurana.

He is former chairman of the Haryana regional council of industry body National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) and has actively worked with authorities over the issue of traffic management.

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Vehicles make a beeline at the toll plaza of Ambience mall, Gurgaon. (Sanjeev Verma/HT Photo)
Vehicles make a beeline at the toll plaza of Ambience mall, Gurgaon. (Sanjeev Verma/HT Photo)

Associate director of administration at travel firm MakeMyTrip.com Ravi Prakash Tyagi has had a first-hand experience of the chaos that the company managements have to deal with when their employees report late because of being stuck at the toll plaza bottleneck.

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“We run a fleet of 80 cabs which get stuck at the toll plaza almost every day. We lose crucial business hours. The meeting schedules go haywire. Cabs burn more fuel. Employees report higher fatigue levels,” he said.

Pradeep Yadav, founder member of Haryana Information Technology and Telecom-enabled Industries Confederation (Hitec), said given the impediment that the toll plaza creates, it should be closed.

“The industry should not mind paying a one-time monetary compensation if the toll operators want that in lieu of moving out. Instead of bearing the brunt of this mismanagement every day, the companies can contribute up to Rs 10 lakh each and get the toll system removed,” he said.

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