Employees working at the Hinjawadi IT Park have demanded a remote working option amid the monsoon mayhem in Pune.
The Forum of IT Employees (FITE), a body representing IT employees, has appealed to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Deputy Chief Ministers Ajit Pawar and Eknath Shinde and Industries Minister Uday Samant on X (formerly Twitter), asking that work-from-home be allowed for employees.
Sharing videos of waterlogged streets and the traffic chaos caused by it, FITE wrote, "If you guys have any care for IT employees then please declare mandatory work from home for Hinjawadi IT park till rains are over & during the rainy season."
In another post, FITE urged MP Supriya Sule to listen to their demands. "As MP, we hoped you would have got this fixed apart from just a tweet. @supriya_sule please help us understand why this IT park is in such a state for years, especially the roads. Also, why after an orange alert of rain & waterlogging, traffic jam, is there no work-from-home?"
This came after Sule posted a video of the waterlogged area and asked the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) to immediately do the needful.
Meanwhile, The Free Press Journal earlier spoke with Pawanjit Mane, a member of FITE. He appealed to the Maharashtra government for mandatory work-from-home (WFH) policies until the monsoon subsides. He said, “It takes up to 2–3 hours for employees working at Hinjawadi and Baner to get back home during rainfall." "We have written to CM Devendra Fadnavis and Baramati MP Supriya Sule to look into the issue of waterlogging and traffic jams faced by IT employees. We have yet to get any response from them," he added.
It seems there is no coordination between the road and drainage departments. IT employees are of the opinion that if they are delivering global-standard software and paying huge taxes to the government, they expect basic infrastructure from the authorities so that they do not face hassles commuting to work. He also emphasised the increasing number of IT employees leaving India for better working standards. When asked about how companies are responding to their issues, Mane said, “As such, we do not see a major push from employers. If that had been the case, these issues would not be repeated each year.”
