Karan Sehgal
PANAJI
The bad state of public transport along with long traffic jams between Panaji and Margao have made
things really difficult for the employees of IT companies in the state.
With bus services unavailable in the late hours, IT companies are finding it very tough to hire people from far off places because they are unable to provide cab or bus service beyond a certain point.
Mangirish Salelkar, CEO and co-founder of Margao-based Umang said, “We have stopped hiring people from North Goa because of issues related to public transport. The last bus from Panaji to Margao is at 10 pm. But, the last bus from Panaji to Mapusa is at 8 pm. How can I hire a resource from Mapusa for a US project. Due to such problems, we can’t hire people from Panaji either.”
Most IT companies have clients in US or Europe. For any sort of client interaction, IT employees have to wait late in the office. In such a case, employees coming from far off areas find it impossible to commute unless they have their own conveyance.
As if that wasn’t enough, traffic jams between Panaji and Margao resulted in IT stakeholders cancelling important meetings with their clients.
Milind Prabhu, CEO, Genora Infotech said, “Last week, due to traffic jams on the national highway, I had to cancel a meeting with a client in Panaji. We have an office in Pune also where cabs provided by Ola and Uber are so cheap. In Goa, if an employee has to take a cab from our office in Verna to his home in Mapusa, he will be spending around Rs 2,000 which is huge.”
Due to poor availability of bus service in the state, Prabhu has to ensure that his employees leave the Goa office by 6:30 pm everyday.
He continued, “In case, we get a lot of work at Goa office and it is not doable by 6:30 pm, we transfer the extra work load to our Pune office.”
This doesn’t bode well for Goa especially when the state government is trying to attract IT industry from all over the world to set up its base here.
Yashvit Naik, director, Teknorix, said, “We are based out of Verna Industrial Estate. But, our office, is 2-3 kms after the Titan gate. Getting people from the gate to our office is a struggle. Due to such issues, we provide our own transport to employees from our office to Margao KTC bus stand everyday.”
Naik continued, “Getting people from North Goa has become very tough due to poor availability of public transport. Only 2 employees of our company come from north of Porvorim. 50% of our staff comes from Margao itself. Few come from Sanvordem and Ponda as well.”
