Work from home imperative, not perk
Every few years, India is ambushed by the same emergency. Crude prices spike. The rupee wobbles. Petrol stations see long lines. Panic spreads. Governments scramble—subsidies, price controls, urgent diplomatic calls to Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. And then, when the pressure eases, we return to business as usual and await the next fire. Trying to solve this problem only from the supply side is not a great idea. We need to look at demand. Among the many ways to manage it is reducing fuel consumption for the office commute. The pandemic recently forced the world’s largest social experiment and proved that a significant slice of the workforce could operate productively from home. Despite that evidence and lived experience, we have not converted experience into policy.
Digitally savvy India is uniquely positioned to treat remote work as a national strategy for creating inclusive, enabling employment.
India’s oil crisis is structural, not cyclical. In 2024, India’s oil and gas import bill stood at approximately $143 billion,
accounting for close to 89 percent of our crude oil needs. The office commute is a significant driver of road-fuel demand. Here is the arithmetic that matters: India’s IT-business management and knowledge economy sector alone employs over 54 lakh workers directly, with the broader digital economy supporting upwards of a crore. A 2024 survey found that 44 percent of Indian workers commute by private car, averaging 10-15 km each way. A conservative estimate puts the fuel consumption at around 1.2-1.6 litres per commuter every day. If just 20 percent of India’s one crore knowledge workers shifted to a three-day-per-week hybrid model, commuting reductions would eliminate approximately 2.4 to 3.2 billion litres of petrol and diesel consumption annually. At current prices, that translates into foreign-exchange savings of $2 to $3 billion a year—simply by redesigning the workweek.
The most persistent objection to remote work is that people do not work when unsupervised. The data disagrees.
Employees in hybrid arrangements worldwide report a 47 percent increase in productivity compared to full-time office work. A 2024 Zoom global study found that 84 percent of employees feel more productive in remote or hybrid settings. The Deloitte Global Workforce Trends Report 2025 notes that 72 percent of organisations believe commuting convenience directly affects productivity and retention. According to TomTom’s Traffic Index 2024, Bengaluru commuters lose over 130 hours annually to congestion—hours that could otherwise be spent working or recuperating.
