Hinjewadi IT Park: An Avalanche in waiting

Hinjewadi IT Park
An Avalanche in waiting

It is 9 am, Monday morning and we are yet again stuck in traffic jam on the ‘usual’ road to our company. If the Monday blues are not enough to fight it out, we have regular traffic jams at Hinjewadi. It is getting worse everyday. Right from the time, we enter the Mumbai-Pune highway leading to the expressway.

The whole stretch leading to Hinjewadi is anything but safe. The road has uncalled U-turns, both government made and man-made, at junctions where cars are zooming at high-speed. There is at least one accident or mishap everyday involving the local village people and IT executives on this dangerous road. Not to mention the ‘white death’ (read cab drivers) flooding the road with unwarranted speeds and breaking traffic laws at will. The irony of all this is, you would hardly see a traffic police officer to help matters.

The trouble starts from the Sadanand Resort Chowk, where cars, bikes, transport carriers, company buses hoard from all the sides. The traffic department has not bothered to install a traffic signal, may be they are waiting for the Commonwealth Games to come to Hinjewadi. But that would be a bit too late for the locals and the IT guys working in Hinjewadi who can take no more of this chowk. If at all you happen to escape that horrid chowk, you get trapped at the Octroi Post where at least 20-30 trucks occupy the road which goes inside the Hinjewadi IT Park. The thin lane road which takes you to Hinjewadi IT Park reminds you of other small crapped roads of Sadashiv peth or other peths of Pune. For starters, sadly it is the only way to the IT Park. With the second phase of the IT Park booming and companies making Hinjewadi their adobe, this small road can not at all equipped to handle huge traffic. The petrol pumps, encroachments, lack of traffic officers and no planning makes matters worse by the day. Even inside the IT Park, there are no speed limits or appropriate speed-breakers to control the speeds of the cab drivers or company buses. Oh yes, I see police officers doing their favorite thing, picking up two-wheelers from illegal parking zones in the IT Park and minting money from the already bugged junta. They come only for that, otherwise it is hard to spot a single police officer.

I am also increasingly getting a feeling that big chaos awaits at the Hinjewadi IT Park, God forbid, if some calamity, terrorist attack or any other unfortunate incident falls upon us. The simple reason being, the roads are too small for the first and second phase to escape from the IT Park at a single time and there are only two suitable roads to run away. Working in the IT Park is more or less like a mousetrap. The recent fire in a warehouse near a software company highlighted another problem, the lack of Fire Brigade in the IT Park. Still there are no measurements taken to provide one.

I have not even started to underline the mental and physical stress for It guys due to traffic jams, the precious time wasted everyday, that costs huge money to the company. The talent we lose to death on the highway, loss of property and so on. Everyday IT companies from the IT Park are losing money due to traffic jams in Hinjewadi and Wakad as employees are not able to login on time. The case being that of lots of call centers and technical supports engineers, besides others, who have to attend important meetings or discussions. Request you all to pass on this message to one and all IT Guys who work in Hinjewadi. Something has to be done to avoid an avalanche of sorts, before it is too late.