Truck tech firm to move out of ORR area in Bengaluru to save its employees from traffic snarl

BlackBuck, a digital platform for truck operators, on Tuesday said it has decided to move out of the Outer Ring Road (Bellandur) area as its employees were finding it hard to commute to work.

The company’s co-founder and CEO, Rajesh Kumar Yabaji, wrote on X, “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 the background behind his decision, he said, “Average commute for my colleagues 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.”

Mr. Yabaji’s post received some 83,000 views (at the time of writing this story), and one of them 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.”

When contacted, Krishna Kumar Gowda, general secretary, Greater Bengaluru IT Companies & Industries Association, said the association was deeply concerned over the continued infrastructure neglect along ORR, exemplified by slow-moving traffic, endless potholes, and unreliable commute times. “The decision of leading firms to move out highlights the urgent need for government intervention. We call for a transparent roadmap to improve roads, metro connectivity, and public utilities, and reiterate our willingness to collaborate with authorities to restore Bengaluru’s status as the tech capital of India,’‘ he added.

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.