Bengaluru: Techies in Bengaluru have launched a campaign demanding commuter rails in order to save time and also for a safer and faster mode of transport. At present, Bengaluru's metro covers barely 20 km and techies say it simply is not sufficient.
With Bengaluru commuters getting stranded in the city's nightmarish traffic day in and day out, techies in the IT corridor of Whitefield are demanding that the local train service be extended instead of the metro. The fatigued residents are urging the authorities to introduce more suburban trains.
Bhavin Gandhi, an IT Professional, said, "Bangalore is the only city which does not have a dedicated suburban rail system. We urge the government to implement it at the earliest. Traffic is increasing daily and commuting has become a real pain in the last few months."
Though the Karnataka government had proposed introducing a suburban rail service in the city, the files are only gathering dust as the project is yet to take off. Residents have now filed a petition with Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu asking for train line to be extended from Ramanagara district all the way to Whitefield.
A woman IT professional said she faced many problems due to her gender. "I commute by bus. If I leave office at 6 pm, I reach home around 9:30 pm. I don't think it's safe after 9 pm. If I take train, I will reach home by 7 pm. There is a two-and-a-half hour gap," she said.
Bhavin Gandhi, another IT Professional, said, "It is a quick feasible solution in order to reduce traffic in Bengaluru compared to the metro. By the time metro comes, it is not an immediate solution. Here, the infrastructure already exists so it is not difficult for government to run it."
With work for the new metro line set to begin soon, techies fear this will only worsen the city traffic. Whitefield, which houses over a hundred IT firms and MNCs, has seen traffic increase by at least 40 per cent in the last two years.
Even these working professionals spend hours stuck in traffic as they commute to work every single day. They say that the existing railway lines in Bengaluru are one of the most under-utilised lines as compared to other metros. According to them, only increasing the frequency of trains in these lines will bring some immediate relief to the rising traffic problems.
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