Coronavirus impact: Bengaluru, Hyderabad office traffic slows down, Delhi continues with business as usual

• Indian companies are facilitating work from home for their employees, to ensure that they don’t take public transport or aren’t in crowded spaces.
• MoveInSync reported Bangalore saw about 8% of regular office goers dropping out of their regular commute by last Friday.
• The numbers are expected to only worsen after the World Health Organization has declared Coronavirus a pandemic.

As the Coronavirus spreads, more and more people are choosing to stay home. Malls wear a deserted look, airports look abandoned and offices too look like they are shut, on regular working days.

Indian companies are facilitating work from home for their employees, to ensure that they don’t take public transport or aren’t in crowded spaces. Industry body NASSCOM urged the government to relax norms and enable work from home. The state-owned Software Technology Parks of India has directed over 18-20 lakh employees in the IT sector, to work remotely.

In such a scenario, even the worst city in the world for traffic, slowed down. Monitoring the office commute last week, MoveInSync reported Bangalore saw about 8% of regular office goers dropping out of their regular commute by last Friday (March 6).

Because of Coronavirus, there has also been a drop in the number of cab bookings in Bengaluru, as more and more techies choose to work from home. Bengaluru-based Flipkart too ordered a mandatory work from home for all of its employees. Uber drivers in Bengaluru have claimed that there has been a 50% drop in bookings.

But the city of Nizams – Hyderabad, where an entire office building was vacated last week in Raheja Mindspace due to the Coronavirus scare, was the worst hit. The report said that people choosing to travel went down on Thursday (March 5), recovered slightly by Friday (March 6).

The numbers are expected to only worsen as the World Health Organization has declared Coronavirus a pandemic.

However, the capital city of Delhi, which was one of the first cities to report a positive patient for Coronavirus, has remained ‘unnerved’. “NCR displayed a lot of resilience and there was hardly any statistical drop in the number of office goers,” said the report by MoveInSync.

MoveInSync has a ride-hailing app offering GetToWork, which is a hit in Bengaluru.

See Also:
coronavirus: Latest News, Articles on coronavirus | Business Insider India
Many Uber drivers in Bengaluru claim at least 50% drop in bookings as coronavirus keeps people off roads