Daily commuters take advance measures to avoid roads

Although the effect of the Bharat Bandh in the city was minimal on Tuesday, commuters had made preparations in advance to ensure they were not caught off guard.

Although the effect of the Bharat Bandh in the city was minimal on Tuesday, commuters had made preparations in advance to ensure they were not caught off guard.

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Residents of other NCR cities who work in Gurugram said that they opted to stay at their friends’ or family’s residences on Monday night to avoid intercity travel.

“Last year in December, I was stuck on the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway for more than four hours due to a protest being held in Delhi. I did not want a repeat of a similar incident and stayed back at my friend’s house in DLF-5 after finishing work on Monday evening,” said Uday Shankar, a resident of GK-1 in Delhi.

A few city residents also opted to use the Delhi Metro for the first time since the coronavirus outbreak, instead of their private vehicles, to avoid any snarls or roadblocks.

“Fearing that there would be roadblocks and traffic snarls due to the protest, I opted to use the Delhi Metro instead of my private vehicle. I wanted to avoid getting stuck on roads and figured using the metro would be the best possible option,” said Abhishek Dayal, a resident of Nirvana Country, who works at Lajpat Nagar in New Delhi.

Professionals, who have resumed working from offices, were also allowed by their companies to work from home, in view of the Bharat Bandh.

“Our company sent an email to all the employees leaving the option of working from home upon their discretion. I did not want to get caught in any untoward incident and as a safer option, opted to work from home. I also directed all my employees at the office, barring those living within a two-kilometre radius, to also work from home while for the latter, it was left optional,” said Saurabh Kumar, who works with a housing insurance company on Mall Mile.

Deepak Maini, the general secretary, Federation of Indian Industry, Haryana chapter, said that almost all factories were open on Tuesday and barring a few supply issues, their functioning was largely unaffected.

“Almost all factories remained opened in the city and business was as usual. We had anticipated issues in regards to the supply of goods due to the nationwide protest. However, barring one or two factories, which faced minor difficulties in this regard, factories and industries operated at their optimum capacity,” said Maini.