Zoho may bring back Work From Home: Sridhar Vembu responds to PM Modi's call

Zoho founder and chief scientist Sridhar Vembu on Monday said his company will reconsider its work-from-home policy after Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged people to cut fuel consumption and conserve foreign exchange amid the West Asia crisis.

"I hope all of us heed the Prime Minister's appeal. As a company, we adopted Work From Office fully in recent months, but we will revisit Work From Home now," Vembu wrote on X.

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He further said that Zoho had already adopted natural farming practices and was looking at ways to reduce diesel consumption. "We have adopted natural farming in our farm, and we are also actively looking for ways to cut diesel use," he said.

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On Sunday, Modi appealed to citizens to reduce petrol and diesel consumption, postpone gold purchases, and avoid foreign travel for one year as rising global crude oil and fertiliser prices put pressure on the economy.

Addressing a rally organised by the Telangana BJP, the Prime Minister called for greater use of metro rail, public transport, electric vehicles, and carpooling. He also suggested wider adoption of work-from-home and virtual meetings to reduce fuel consumption.

"We got into work-from-home, virtual meetings, video conferencing, and many other methods during COVID-19. We got habituated to them. The need of the hour is to resume those methods," Modi said.

The Prime Minister also urged people to avoid buying gold for one year, reduce the use of edible oil and chemical fertilisers, adopt Swadeshi products, and move towards natural farming. "We have to save foreign exchange by any means," Modi said, citing the economic impact of the ongoing West Asia conflict and pressure on global supply chains.

The Prime Minister's appeal came amid concerns over rising crude oil prices and their impact on India, which imports a major share of its energy requirements.