September 17, 2025

BlackBuck, a well-known truck technology company, has stirred up quite a storm in Bengaluru! On Tuesday, Rajesh Kumar Yabaji, the company's co-founder and CEO, took to X (formerly Twitter) to drop a bombshell: BlackBuck is moving out of Bengaluru's Outer Ring Road (ORR) area. Why? Because the daily traffic nightmare and bumpy roads are making life miserable for his team. “ORR (Bellandur) has been our office + home for nine years but it was getting very hard to continue. We have decided to move out,” Mr. Yabaji announced. The main trouble? His employees were stuck in traffic jams for over 1.5 hours each way! The streets are riddled with potholes and thick dust, and worst of all, there seems to be no will to fix these issues anytime soon. “Don’t see any of this changing in the next five years,” he warned. The post struck a chord and quickly caught the attention of big names. Mohandas Pai, former CFO of Infosys, slammed the city's governance on X. Tagging Bengaluru’s Development Minister and Karnataka’s Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar, he said, “Big big failure of governance in Bengaluru.” He called for urgent government action. IT Minister Priyank Kharge and Greater Bengaluru Authority Commissioner M. Maheswar Rao were also asked to step in. Not stopping there, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Biocon’s founder, jumped into the fray with a serious appeal. She wrote, “This is serious. Emergency measures needed to fix these issues.” She urged minister Shivakumar to act immediately to clear traffic snarls and fix infrastructure problems. The reaction from the public was just as fiery. Mr. Yabaji’s post racked up about 8,71,000 views and sparked comments like, “Great decision. Plus, real estate is massively overvalued in that entire stretch (ORR). Builders are asking more than the current prices of Chicago and Dubai for the infrastructure of Somalia.” Ouch! Traffic on the ORR has gone from bad to worse this year after companies ended their remote work policies and asked employees to return to offices full-time. The drama took an interstate twist when Andhra Pradesh IT Minister Nara Lokesh jumped in to invite BlackBuck to relocate. He boasted about Vizag, calling it one of India’s top 5 cleanest cities, with top-notch infrastructure and a safe environment for women. “Hi Rajesh, can I interest you in relocating your company to Vizag? We are rated among top 5 cleanest cities in India, are building best-in-class infra, and have been rated the safest city for women. Please send me a DM,” he tweeted. Bengaluru’s ORR woes show no signs of ending soon. With tech giants threatening to leave, can the city’s leaders fix the mess before it’s too late?

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Tags: Blackbuck, Traffic problem, Bengaluru orr, Rajesh kumar yabaji, Infrastructure, Company relocation,