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Bangalore: Hold Me Tight And Don't Let Go The IT boom is flagging, the power situation still sucks, and it is the third-most polluted city in the country. But Bangalore still retains its lustre for investors, has hopes of seguing from one revolution, infotech, to another, biotech, and has a side-bet on the healthcare business. By Venkatesha Babu
Every city should have a Supreme Court,'' says V. Ravichandar, the CEO of Feedback Research, a Bangalore-based industrial-b2b, if you will-market research organisation, the country's largest. The 44-year-old Ravichandar, an Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, alum who moved to the city in 1969 sits on the Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF) chaired by Infosys Managing Director Nandan M. Nilekani. Ravichandar's reference is to the way the Supreme Court's Green Bench has gone about ridding Delhi of vehicular pollution, making it a far more livable city obiter dicta. It isn't just the pollution-city administrators admit Bangalore is the third-most polluted city in India after Kolkata and Mumbai-that is wrong with Bangalore. Traffic snarls are quotidian affairs, power is a problem for CEOs and home-makers alike, and piped drinking water, that most basic of necessities, isn't as freely available as it should be. Karnataka Chief Minister S.M. Krishna's blue-sky vision for the city acknowledges the deficiencies but chooses to strike an optimistic note. ''Our dream is to make Bangalore another Singapore. With the construction of several new flyovers, the implementation of Cauvery 4-stage water project, augmenting power generation, and shifting smokestack industries from the city, we want to improve the quality of life in Bangalore.''
If there's one thing that will prevent Krishna from realising his vision, it is the city's population that is an impressive 7.2 million-as compared to role model Singapore's 4.1 million. It is the fact that the city's population has almost doubled from 4.2 million in 1992 that lies at the root of Bangalore's ills. Result? Population density in yesterday's garden city, at 14,876 people per square kilometre, isn't really as high as Mumbai's 39,671 but it is certainly more than Delhi's 11,114. And its 840 kilometres of roads support 2.16 lakh cars as compared to Mumbai's 1,870 kilometres that do 4.1 lakh cars, and Delhi's 26,323 kilometres that do 7.3 lakh. Worse, Bangalore, despite the 1,800 buses of the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Organisation, doesn't really have a great public transport system. So, while the chief minister dreams of hyper-disciplinary city-states, the typical Bangalore resident has nightmares of the city turning into another Delhi. One, as Ravichandar would hasten to add, without a Supreme Court. A Mis-timed Threnody An obituary for Bangalore, though, would be premature given the businesses that inhabit the city. Infotech? Glimmer twins Wipro and Infosys, multinationals TI, Cisco, IBM, Compaq, Oracle, and a clutch of others. Consumer products? Toyota, BPL, biscuit king Britannia, United Breweries, Madura Garments, Arvind Clothing, and HLL's beverages businesses. And the list of notable others includes the John F. Welch Research Centre, GE's largest research facility outside the continental United States.
As American industry's experience with Silicon Valley proves, it makes sense for companies of a feather to flock together. Like begets like. And if it was the weather, the 26 engineering colleges, the nation's premier pure science school (Indian Institute of Science), and research-minded public sector behemoths like Hindustan Aeronautics, Bharat Electricals, ITI, Indian Space research Organisation, and Defence Research and Development Organisation that attracted pilgrims like IBM and TI, then it was the presence of these blue-chip tech companies that, in turn, encouraged others to make a beeline for Bangalore. None of that has changed. When Ittiam, a tech-hothouse that works in the DSP (Digital Signal Processing) area, decided to hire 20 VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) engineers and advertised for the positions, the bulk of the 10,000 applications it received were from Bangalore. ''Nowhere else, with the possible exception of Mumbai, would we have got such a response for a niche specialisation,'' says Srini Rajam, the company's CEO and former head of TI's facility in the city. What has changed is the demand-supply imbalance on several fronts: water, road-length, power, and public transport. Although he is quick to apportion all blame to the previous government, the city's new mayor K. Chandrasekhar of the Congress party admits that the quality of life in Bangalore has deteriorated. ''We are doing our utmost, but with the population explosion in the city, we can only do so much.'' So, what's going to redeem yesterday's boomtown? Dark Horse, White Knight
''The infrastructure problems faced by the city have to be solved systematically,'' says Nandan Nilekani of BATF. ''All concerted citizens have to work with the civic authorities for this.'' Those aren't just words. Soon after being persuaded by chief minister Krishna to accept the post, Nilekani wrote out a cheque for Rs 2 crore for the BATF fund.
Things do seem to be moving. A spokesperson for the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board claims the implementation of the fourth stage of the Cauvery Scheme-this will supply an additional 9.46 TMC of water-will make piped water available to all, and the city's commissioner of police H.T. Sangaliana maintains that the crime rate (more than 8,000 crimes thus far in 2001, including about 600 murders) isn't bad given its population. And while the ubiquitous sad story-this time, that of T. Narayana Gowda, a small-time entrepreneur who runs an office equipment dealership and hasn't managed a telephone connection after 10 months of trying-is not very far away, companies, especially those located in facilities maintained by the Software Technology Parks, Bangalore, don't seem to have any problems with connectivity. ''One attraction Bangalore holds for it companies is that telecommunication facilities in the city are very good,'' agrees Anant Koppar, the CEO of Kshema Technologies, a tech hotshop that operates in the software services segment. ''Bandwidth is on tap, and if there is a problem, STPB takes care of it immediately.'' But if Bangalore reclaims its position on top of the heap, it won't be connectivity or low crime rates that help it do so.
It will be the city's technical education institutions. It will be the research organisations located there. It will be the tech-oriented companies that have made it their home. More than anything else, it will be the entrepreneurial drive that has become as much a part of the city's culture as the 118 pubs that dot its topography. Already, Bangalore seems set to become the biotech capital of India, although Hyderabad runs it close. And the government is trying to leverage the large number of medical colleges in the city (5 in all), and the strong foundation of organised healthcare that already exists in it-courtesy, seven corporate hospitals-to position Bangalore as an off-shore operating facility for over-burdened healthcare systems abroad like the United Kingdom's National Health Service. ''The healthcare and medicare segment holds great potential. We get patients not only from neighbouring countries, but also from developed countries like the US and New Zealand,'' says Dr Devi Prasad Shetty, an eminent cardiac surgeon who recently set up his own corporate hospital, Naryana Hrudayalya. Does the city have room to grow? Ravi Purvankara, the head of an eponymous business group that is one of Bangalore's largest builders thinks it can. ''Even today, if one travels 15-20 kilometres in any direction from the heart of the city, one reaches its end. Since there is so much room for growth, real estate prices haven't shown much appreciation. It won't be geography, then, that will come in the way of Bangalore's tryst with history. |
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