Wipro chairman and founder Azim Premji has rejected Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's appeal for public vehicles to be allowed through the Sarjapur campus of the company as one of the solutions to decongest traffic in Bengaluru.
Declining the offer, Premji asserted Wipro's willingness to collaborate with the government on more comprehensive solutions for the mobility problems of the city. He also put senior executive Reshmi Shankar in charge of coordinating with state officials regarding the issue.
The chief minister had requested Wipro, querying whether the IT behemoth could provisionally open its Sarjapur unit as a bypass to decongest the traffic load along the Outer Ring Road (ORR). Premji, in a reply, confirmed both the gravity of the issue and the need for corporate assistance.
Yet he emphasized that the SEZ status of the Sarjapur facility forces strict limitations.
"In regard to the particular proposal of permitting public vehicular passage through our Sarjapur facility, we understand massive legal, governance, and statutory issues because it is a private property owned by a listed corporation not meant for public passageway," Premji added.
He also detailed the operational and regulatory issues related to the building:
"Besides that it will be enjoyed that our campus at Sarjapur is a SEZ offering services to overseas customers, our contractual terms insist on tight, non-negotiable access control standards for governance and compliance. Additionally, public vehicular passage through private land would not be an effective long-term, sustainable solution," he explained.
Instead, Premji demanded a methodical, professional way of going about the city's congestion issues.
"The complexity of the problem, arising from multiple causes, indicates that there is not likely to be a point solution or silver bullet to deal with it. Towards this purpose, we believe the best approach is to entrust a thorough, scientific study by an organization with world-class knowledge in urban transport management. This exercise would enable us to create an overall blueprint of effective solutions to be delivered in the short, medium, and long term. To illustrate our intention to be part of the solution, Wipro will be happy to participate in this process and sponsor a major part of the expense for this expert study," Premji said.
Bengaluru, the hub of India's biggest tech corridor, has always grappled with traffic jams, especially on the ORR, which is a stronghold of multinational companies and export-oriented industries. The dialogue between the state and Wipro highlights how private businesses are increasingly being pulled into discussions over city infrastructure in the nation's tech capital.
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