Challenges Galore For Employees Commuting To Workplaces As Pandemic Unlock Begins Across India

Following the Uttar Pradesh government orders to reopen offices, most government offices started functioning on Monday. In the majority of them, there was no arrangement for sanitisers. Not just this, people openly flouted social distancing norms. Reports suggest that in some offices, thermal scanning of visitors was not done.

This gives a quick peek into the future as more and more offices open in the coming time under government's Unlock 1.0, followed by Lockdown 5.0 which ended on May 31.

India is about to touch 2,00,000 COVID-19 cases and has so far recorded more than 5,000 deaths due to the deadly virus.

However, following the lockdown, economic growth halted. To revive the engine, the government decided to reopen the economy and pump life back into it.

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States like West Bengal, Karnataka, Haryana, Telangana have announced an extension on lockdown in containment zones till June 30, keeping in view the rising number of novel coronavirus cases.

The Centre¡¯s new guidelines provide a roadmap for lifting the lockdown and allows states to make a decision on when to open educational institutions, public transport and other places of social gathering such as malls and cinema halls and the underlying conditions.

The relaxations announced by the state government would not be applicable in the containment zones including in 13 cities that account for the country¡¯s 70% of Covid-19 cases. The mandate is to enforce lockdown as strictly as possible in these areas.

Except Maharashtra, almost all states have allowed running of offices and industrial areas, outside containment zones, with full capacity from Monday.

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The resumption of metro services will take some more time. Many reports suggest that the metro services will not resume before July/August considering the high number of people travelling in those. However, most states have relaxed norms for public transport for smoother within and outside the state.

The primary concern is around offices in cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, etc where most people have been working from home ever since the lockdown was announced in March and some even before that.

A large section of the workforce is dependent on public transport such as metro services, and that could be one massive challenge for them to commute to work. Many on Twitter have reiterated the same issues of commute for the majority of people who commute to work not in their private vehicles.

While all offices have been allowed to open, private firms are encouraged to continue work from home for their workforce.

The home ministry has left the decision-making on states saying that states could continue restrictions according to their assessment of the virus situation.