The union minister’s lengthy post on X came in reaction to a feeler put out by Andhra Pradesh IT Minister Nara Lokesh to Rajesh Yabaji, CEO of Bengaluru-based logistics startup BlackBuck. Lokesh had sought to know if Yabaji was interested in relocating to Visakhapatnam after the BlackBuck CEO announced that his company was exiting the outer ring road (ORR) because of its poor state and the consequent long commute employees had to endure.
The section of the outer ring road between Silk Board and Hebbal is home to about 500 technology companies and startups, including Microsoft, Cisco, Intel, Accenture and Wipro, as well as business parks such as Embassy Tech Village, RMZ Ecoworld and Manyata Tech Park. About one million tech workers are estimated to commute to work on the ORR daily, making it the most congested road in Bengaluru.
Kumaraswamy, who represents Mandya in the Lok Sabha, alleged that the Congress regime had let Bengaluru’s prestige take a beating in the eyes of investors by not fixing potholes. He held Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy CM DK Shivakumar responsible for the state of affairs and alleged that “Bengaluru and Karnataka are suffering at the hands of corrupt people”.
“Industrialists are right in calling this an utter failure of governance,” the former CM added.
Karnataka’s development, Kumaraswamy said, had been sacrificed at the altar of election guarantees, while Bengaluru was collapsing.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Wednesday blamed incessant rains for the sorry state of Bengaluru’s roads.
The BlackBuck CEO’s post on the mess around ORR has gone viral, sparking an uproar against the government on social media, including from industry leaders Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw of Biocon and Aarin Capital founder Mohandas Pai.
In his post on Tuesday, Yabaji had said that while BlackBuck had operated from its office on ORR (Bellandur) for the past nine years, it would be very hard to continue there. He said the average commute for his colleagues has shot up to 90 minutes or more one way and that the roads in the area were full of potholes and dust. Yabaji added that he did not see any intent from the authorities to fix the roads, and that he had no hope of this changing in the next five years.