Yogi’s WFH and online class plan adds up on paper. But getting Ghaziabad to park its cars — and Lucknow’s students to log in without a paratha — is another matter entirely.
With thin public transport and millions of private commuters, UP’s tier-2 cities burn more fuel per person than Delhi. WFH could finally fix that. (AI image)
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has proposed a two-day weekly work-from-home model for employees in large industrial units, IT companies and startups — and ordered online classes for students from Classes 1 to 8 — as part of a sweeping fuel conservation drive triggered by rising global crude oil prices. The moves sound ambitious. But do they actually work?
The push follows Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s appeal to citizens and companies to reduce unnecessary fuel consumption amid geopolitical tensions in West Asia driving crude oil prices sharply higher.
The proposal followed a series of developments that have collectively revived the national work-from-home conversation, including a formal letter by the Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate to the Ministry of Labour seeking a government advisory encouraging remote work across IT and IT-enabled services.
Yogi’s order goes further — cutting ministerial convoys by 50 per cent, pushing virtual government meetings, proposing staggered office timings and even floating the idea of a weekly No Vehicle Day.
What Exactly Has Yogi Ordered — And What is SIET?
CM Yogi has requested institutions having a manpower of more than 50 people to incorporate a work-from-home system for two days a week. The full package of directives includes:
• Two-day WFH for large industrial units, IT companies and startups
• 50 per cent reduction in ministerial and official vehicle convoys, including the CM’s own
• Inter-district meetings, trainings and committee meetings shifted to hybrid or virtual mode
• 50 per cent of internal meetings at the State Secretariat to be conducted virtually
• Ministers urged to use public transport — metro, buses, e-rickshaws or carpooling — at least once a week
• A weekly No Vehicle Day proposed for government employees, students and civil society
• Promotion of cycling, carpooling and electric vehicles
On the education side, the state’s Basic and Secondary Education Departments, in collaboration with the State Institute of Educational Technology (SIET), have developed a platform to help students from Class 6 to 12 continue their studies anytime and anywhere through recorded lectures available on the DIKSHA portal, SIET’s official website, and mobile applications.
Students can access content via smartphones, tablets, laptops or even television via DTH educational channels.
SIET — the State Institute of Educational Technology — is a decades-old government body originally set up under the INSAT satellite education project of 1982 to produce educational television and radio content for school children in regional languages. It is now being repositioned as UP’s digital education backbone.
How Much Fuel Can Noida, Ghaziabad, Lucknow And Kanpur Actually Save?
These cities are not Mumbai or Delhi — but that is precisely what makes the argument interesting. The largest potential fuel savings are concentrated in major office corridors where long commutes and private transport dependence remain common — such as Bengaluru, Gurugram, Noida, Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai and Chennai.
Noida and Ghaziabad, with their dense IT and corporate park clusters, sit squarely in this category.
A rough but illustrative calculation for a typical UP city commuter:
• Average one-way commute: 15 to 25 km
• Car mileage: 12 km per litre at Rs 105 per litre petrol
• Daily fuel cost: approximately Rs 175 per day
• Two WFH days a week saves: roughly Rs 1,400 per month per person
• Across one lakh such commuters in Noida-Ghaziabad alone: aggregate monthly saving crosses Rs 140 crore — just in fuel, not counting time
Petrol sales are largely driven by two-wheelers and private cars, which are also the categories most heavily used for office commuting.
Work-from-home should be viewed as only one part of a broader urban fuel-management strategy — virtual meetings, staggered office timings, carpooling and stronger public transport adoption all need to work together.
How Does UP Compare To Delhi Or Mumbai On This?
Metro cities like Delhi and Mumbai have denser public transport networks — metro, local trains, buses — meaning a larger share of their workforce already commutes without burning private vehicle fuel.
The WFH fuel saving is paradoxically larger in cities like Noida, Ghaziabad, Lucknow and Kanpur precisely because private vehicle dependency is higher and public transport alternatives are thinner.
Fewer people in these cities can switch to a bus or train — so when they stay home, they save more fuel per person than a Mumbai local train commuter ever would.
What Did Covid Teach Us About WFH And Fuel?
The pandemic gave India its most dramatic real-world experiment. India’s petroleum product consumption fell 45.8 per cent in April 2020 compared with April 2019 after industrial activity and transportation were sharply curtailed during nationwide restrictions.
Diesel consumption decreased by 24 per cent in March 2020 compared to March 2019, while overall petroleum product consumption decreased by 18 per cent during the same period. Cities reported dramatically cleaner air almost immediately.
But experts caution against over-reading the lesson:
• The better approach is calibrated hybrid work, fewer physical meetings and reduced non-essential travel — not panic-driven shutdowns
• A day of working from home can increase household energy consumption by seven per cent to 23 per cent compared with a day spent working at the office, depending on climate conditions, housing size, and appliance efficiency
• If office buildings continue running air conditioning, lighting and security systems regardless of how many employees show up, corporate energy savings may be minimal
In UP’s brutal May heat, with home air conditioners running all day, some of the fuel saving gets quietly transferred to the electricity bill.
And What About Online Classes — Will They Actually Work?
Here is where the Covid-era ground reality delivers a sobering check. Online classes in UP schools became a daily theatre of chaos — and teachers across the state have not forgotten it:
• Students attending in vests while brushing their teeth or eating parathas mid-lesson
• Aunts walking into video frames mid-hug while class was on
• Boys in senior classes making obscene gestures before conveniently logging off
• Students sending vulgar messages or flashing inappropriate content to teachers
• A Baghpat case ended in a police probe after a teacher caned two students — with parents defending children’s behaviour as pandemic distress
• One Kanpur teacher reported a Class 10 girl appearing on screen in full make-up and revealing clothes — her mother’s defence: she was “learning the art of make-up” just before class began
As one Varanasi teacher grimly put it: “I dread returning to normal classes — I won’t know how to face those who misbehaved online.”
SIET’s recorded lecture model at least sidesteps the live-class discipline problem, allowing children to learn at their own pace. But without devices, stable internet and an adult in the room, the gap between the policy and the living room remains wide — especially for Classes 1 to 8, where children are youngest and parental supervision most critical.
So Will This Actually Make A Difference?
Hybrid work can support India’s fuel conservation and energy security objectives by reducing congestion-intensive daily commuting in major metropolitan regions, particularly among private vehicle users in the services and IT sectors.
Given India’s high dependence on imported crude oil at around 85 per cent, even moderate reductions in peak-hour travel can contribute to lower transport fuel demand and associated urban emissions.
The arithmetic is real. The intent is sound. But between a government advisory and a family in Ghaziabad actually switching off their car engine twice a week — or a Class 3 student in Lucknow sitting quietly through a SIET video lecture without a paratha in hand — lies a very long road.
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