India’s flooded tech hub faces fresh chaos as more rain is forecast
Weather officials are predicting further bouts of severe weather in Bengaluru as torrential rains pounded the city, submerged access to office parks and hit back-office operations that are the nerve centre of the global financial and technology industries.
Known as India’s Silicon Valley, Bengaluru has faced consecutive nights of relentless monsoon rains that have crippled transport and business operations on the city’s key Outer Ring Road (ORR), an area where big name international firms such as Microsoft Corp, Intel Corp, Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Morgan Stanley have offices.
It has also caused tens of millions in productivity losses locally, according to an industry group.
A cluster of chrome-and-glass towers on the ORR, as well as office parks nearby have become home to about a million software coders and support workers. They handle such vital operations as risk management, customer support and financial compliance.
The companies that employ them had returned to a semblance of workplace normalcy after prolonged Covid-19 restrictions, but have been forced to send workers back to working from home yet again.
The downpour of the past days, described by local media as some of the wettest on record for Bengaluru, highlighted the dilapidated public facilities in one of India’s most global cities and irked the global businesses that have made it their base.
The city has already reported two deaths due to the rains and India’s Meteorological Department has issued a yellow alert for Bengaluru, indicating further bad weather.
Poor infrastructure in the city’s technology corridor is “bringing down the efficiency and productivity of the companies and putting employees’ safety and well-being at risk”, members of the Outer Ring Road Companies’ Association, which includes Wall Street banks and global tech behemoths, complained in a strongly-worded letter to the chief minister of Karnataka state, of which Bengaluru is capital.
Flooding led to a five-hour traffic jam where workers were stuck leading to a loss of about US$30 million (S42.3 million), the group said in the letter.
Companies had to trigger emergency business continuity plans, allow work from home or pass on critical work to locations outside of Bengaluru, causing reputational damage and economic losses, the group said.
Bengaluru, home to over 10 million people, serves as a base for major outsourcing companies, dozens of prominent start-ups, and the India e-commerce operations of Amazon and Walmart.
It also houses the global technology units of hundreds of companies from consultancy KPMG, software tools maker Adobe Inc and travel software provider Amadeus IT Group.
It is becoming a popular hub for expatriates drawn to its moderate weather and cosmopolitan lifestyle.
Many have blamed the events on the rampant and chaotic development in the city where lakes and storm water drains have been filled to make way for glitzy buildings and posh homes.
Traffic jams have only worsened in the last decade.
But this week’s flooding took the pain to another level for many residents who waded through waist-deep water to get out of their flooded homes.