BlackBuck, a truck technology firm, seems to have triggered a fresh outcry in Bengaluru, after its co-founder and CEO Rajesh Kumar Yabaji, on Tuesday, through X, announced that the company was moving out of the Outer Ring Road (ORR) area as its employees were finding the commute to work tough under bad traffic conditions.

Mr. Yabaji wrote on X that, "ORR (Bellandur) has been our office + home for nine years but it was getting very hard to continue. We have decided to move out."

Explaining what led to this decision, he said that the average commute for his colleagues had shot up to 1.5-plus hours one way. "Roads are full of potholes and dust, coupled with the lowest intent to get them rectified. Don't see any of this changing in the next five years,'' his post said.

In a quick response to Mr. Yabaji's post, Mohandas Pai, former Infosys CFO, wrote on X, "Big big failure of governance in Bengaluru." He tagged Bengaluru Development Minister and Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar on the post, adding, "Please see, cos are moving out of ORR. Situation beyond hope. Please intervene." He sought the intervention of IT Minister Priyank Kharge and Greater Bengaluru Authority Commissioner M. Maheswar Rao.

Joining the chorus, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, founder of Biocon, wrote on X, "This is serious. Emergency measures needed to fix these issues." She also urged Mr. Shivakumar to take emergency measures to fix the traffic snarl and infrastructure issues.

Mr. Yabaji's post received some 8,71,000 views (at the time of writing this story). One of the viewers commented, "Great decision. Plus, real estate is massively overvalued in that entire stretch (ORR). Builders are asking more than the current prices of Chicago and Dubai for the infrastructure of Somalia.''

The ORR region has been witnessing a huge spike in traffic this year after companies made office attendance mandatory after years of hybrid and remote work arrangements.

Invite by AP

The city battle soon became an inter-state rival pitch, when Andhra Pradesh IT Minister Nara Lokesh offered a possible relocation to the CEO who flagged the pothole issue in Bengaluru.

"Hi Rajesh, can I interest you in relocating your company to Vizag? We are rated among top 5 cleanest cities in India, are building best-in-class infra, and have been rated the safest city for women. Please send me a DM," the Minister has said in a post on X.

Bengaluru ORR infra woes: Industry veterans rally around tech firm BlackBuck