Hostel owners rally to end work-from-home in IT belt

Hyderabad: Not just managers and employers, now even hostel owners in the IT corridor want companies to do away with work-from-home and make it compulsory for employees to attend office every day. Their argument: Hostels are struggling to survive post-pandemic, given their dependence on the IT crowd.To make their voice heard, members of the IT Corridor Hostels Association recently took out a protest rally in front of Infosys, Pocharam. “In places like Pocharam, many of us have taken loans and constructed buildings to cater to the IT rush. But now, we are overburdened with EMIs and are not getting any income because companies are still allowing employees to work-from-home. This needs to end as the govt has allotted plots to companies at subsidised cost for the benefit of all and not just one company,” said Amarnath Reddy Pasam, president of the association.

There are about 700 apartment-turned-hostels near the Infosys campus in Pocharam with at least another 50 near the IT corridor. In areas like Jodimetla and Uppal, another 200 hostels are said to be operational — all thriving entirely on the rush of the IT workforce from outside Hyderabad. According to association members, currently, almost all these hostels are running at less than 20% occupancy. They are now planning to meet the IT secretary, IT minister, and chief minister to appraise them of the issue and seek their help in dealing with this steep financial loss.Many building owners, who have rented out their premises to hostels, said that their income has reduced drastically in the last two to three years.“I have three buildings in Pocharam. One of them is vacant and I am only getting 37,000 and 30,000 for the other two buildings. While one of the buildings has seven 3BHKs and three 2BHKs, the other one has 12 3BHKs,” said K Rami Reddy, adding how he is paying over 2 lakh per month for the loans he has taken to construct these houses. Pre-pandemic, the three properties fetched him about 1.7 lakh each.Apart from hostels, local stores, housekeeping staff, cooks, and vendors are all struggling to stay afloat because of the continuation of work-from-home. In Greater Hyderabad, there are about 4,500 hostels that are primarily dependent on IT employees. While the occupancy in hostels around Hi-Tec City and its surroundings is said to have increased post-pandemic, in other areas it is on a decline — also because of layoffs and lack of recruitment. “In one of our hostels, we reduced housekeeping staff from seven to six and kitchen staff from six to three as not even 30% of our 200-bed hostel is occupied. The same is the case with other hostels. Work-from-home is taking away jobs of people from various other sectors and this needs to end,” said P Siva Kumar, in charge of seven hostels in Pocharam.
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