Work from home a boon for ecosystem

The coronavirus pandemic has caused innumerable human casualties and unimaginable economic slowdown. The rich and poor have suffered equally. Since the restriction on movement and declaration of lockdown, work from home has become the new normal for most of the corporate organisations and institutions. After spending almost one-and-ahalf months in the lockdown phase, realisation has dawned on us that the pandemic has, ironically, but certainly injected a rejuvenating vaccine of sorts in our ecosystem, which was always available to us but we never thought of applying it. The young generation, which has never paid attention to blue skies in the days and a starry firmament at night, is gazing at all of it, wideeyed. People with respiratory diseases are much relieved and the consumption of inhalers has been grossly reduced. All this happened because of shutting down of industries emanating toxic gases in the air and dumping toxic waste in rivers. However, a definite contribution to the rejuvenation of our environment is restriction of vehicular movement on our roads. The undeniable fact is that if the closing of industries has contributed to the cleaning of the environment, it has also led to unemployment and hit many poor workers hard, but nothing of that sort has happened with the organisations obtaining work from their employees working from home.

The following definite advantages of working from home have been registered which can be capitalised even in normal times.

1. If majority of the office workers work from home, the corporate organisations do not have to spend millions on renting posh office buildings in business hubs.

2. There would be much less vehicles on the roads, minimising the pollutants and road

accidents, and metros like Delhi do not have to apply ‘odd and even’ days.

3. The consumption of fuel is reduced and the state can save money from oil imports.

4. Family bonding would increase and housewives and kids do not have to wait for the weekends to interact with the bread earner of the family.

5. Academic institutions do not have to spend millions on organising conferences. Webinar is the new normal, which saves money and the time of speakers and delegates.

6. Gradually, the schools should also move towards online teaching, except the practicals where students may have to come to schools for a couple of days only.

While we lose a lot because of this pandemic, we can also look for opportunities during this time of distress. If we adopt the new norm of work from home and online teaching, it shall definitely be a boon for our environment. There appears to be a ray of hope for the likes of Greta Thunberg.

(THE WRITER IS PROFESSOR AND HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF PATHOLOGY, ERA MEDICAL COLLEGE, LUCKNOW.)

The views are personal