Chandigarh: It's All About Scalability

Scalability is the nemesis of not just dotcoms, but also cities. Just ask Chandigarh. But yesterday's epitome of planned urbanisation has some tricks up its sleeve to scale up without losing out on its obvious advantages.

No city should have to live in the shadow of its planner, but such is the fate of Chandigarh. The city was designed by arguably the greatest architect of the 20th century, Le Corbusier. It was his full-scale model of a concept he called La Ville Radieuse, the radiant city. Corbusier envisioned a city without crowds and ugly neighbourhoods, a sanitised urban showpiece that boasted huge (the man was big on scale) buildings with clean lines, and clearly delineated zones for work, life, and leisure. And for some time it looked like deference for a dead architect's diktat would come in the way of the city's progress.

If Chandigarh figures in this listing at all, it is because that is changing. The man in charge of the city now is Lieutenant-General (retd.) Jack Frederick Ralph Jacob, the Governor of Punjab and the City Administrator of Chandigarh. The pragmatic 81-year-old realises that planning is effete if it can't factor in scalability.

For instance, Corbusier had planned for a city with a population of 4.5 lakh. Chandigarh already boasts a population of 9.1 lakh. And so, Jacob has set about rewriting the rules some. Like the Shop & Factory Act, which stipulated that no changes could be made to the existing structures of shops and commercial establishments-a sure growth-crippler.

Even as he goes about doing this Jacob is trying to maintain the obvious advantages that planned development, however stifling, has bestowed on the city.

Of these-advantages-there are many, some a thought-out result of Corbusier's master-plan, and others, adventitious fall outs. Satellite industrial townships Panchkula and Mohali play host to companies like Infosys, Quark, Fortis, Punjab Tractors ICI and almost 100 others from sectors like infotech, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, automotive and paints, making Chandigarh a not-so-bad place to work in.

Facilitating the city's shift from n-s-b to a great place to work are commute-times-a maximum of 30 minutes between Chandigarh and its satellites-and quality-of-life issues. Vinod Sehgal, the Managing Director of Spice Telecom, commutes to Mohali everyday. ''I don't waste any time on commuting and can devote time to work, and my family.''

Then, there is the low cost of residential accommodation: Rs 5,000 can get a three-bedroom flat with a bit of garden thrown in. And with 105 government schools, four colleges, a medical college, an engineering college, and two polytechnics Chandigarh's educational facilities are certainly above par. Power and water aren't a problem, and despite a vehicle to population ratio of 1: 2, the city has an efficient public transport system (and is connected to the rest of the country by air, road, and rail). ''As the negatives of megalopolis' grow, Chandigarh's charm will increase,'' says Harpal Singh, managing director of Fortis Healthcare, which recently invested Rs 155 crore in a speciality hospital at Mohali.

Of life, there's no shortage. Sector 17 houses all of India's marquee retail brands, including Wills Sport and MusicWorld, and an extension of Delhi-based designer Ritu Kumar's boutique. ''The locals were thrilled when we opened; lots of them had been travelling to Delhi to pick up designer ensembles,'' gushes the boutique's manager Mohinder Singh. Crime? Well, a city with a population nudging a million and just 14 murders in the first 10 months of 2001 can surely lay claim to being a safe haven. And 35-odd pubs that stay open till 11 every night (1 a.m. during weekends) three discotheques, and the second most active golf course in the world after St Andrews in Scotland round off the after-work scene.

Scaling up, and retaining these advantages won't be easy. Already, sprawling urban slums have mushroomed, a result of a population that has increased some 50 per cent in the past decade.

The city is developing two residential sectors that will house 2 lakh people, and is considering avenues through it which it can outgrow Corbusier's vision. ''Chandigarh is overflowing into other states and we are addressing this problem,'' admits Karan A. Singh, Finance Secretary, Chandigarh Administration. The administration has also provided for an increased demand for power and water and should be able to tide out the first decade of this century without problems.

But the real big leap, Jacob hopes, will come from making Chandigarh a destination for, who else, it companies. ''The city has a large population of young educated people; we want to bring in a pollution-free manpower intensive industry.'' Given the geographical limitations to space-intensive industries, it and it-enabled services should fit Jacob's bill.

Already software exports from the city have increased from Rs 7.7 crore in 1999-2000 to Rs 53.7 crore in 2000-2001 (this year's target is Rs 100 crore); three call centres are coming up to add to the 15 that are already there; a 104-acre it park is on the anvil; and the city has tied up with hfcl, Powergrid Corporation, and Spectra Punjab for a wiring up exercise that involves 150 kilometre of fibre.

The bandwidth providers will also provide 8 MB for Jacob's pet project, an e-governance initiative that has already seen the institution of two counters providing information and forms that need to be filled to initiate any interface with the government, online. That's the kind of planning that could see Chandigarh break free from the shackles imposed on it by planning Corbusier-style.

Jobs@chandigarh

Rahul Taneja, Vice President, Consindia
"The city administration is bullish on infotech."

In the early years of its existence the first planned city of independent India, Chandigarh, had a residential-focus: affluent land-owners from Punjab & Haryana inhabited the city till the late 70's. In the late 70s and early 80s the offices of the Haryana and Punjab governments moved there and the government sector became a big draw for potential employees. Around the same time, several educational institutes sprang up and academics became a possible career alternative. Sometime in the 1980s, Mohali and Panchkula became satellite industrial townships and things started to really move. Today, there are around 10 industrial centres located in the states of Punjab or Himachal Pradesh that are within a 40 kilometre radius of Chandigarh. Companies from Quark to Ranbaxy to Wockhardt are located in these satellite townships. The city administration is bullish on it and has set up a software park in Mohali that has attracted companies like Satyam and Infosys. And with Fortis setting up North India's largest heart hospital in Mohali, things look bright on the healthcare front too.