12-05-2004, 09:59 PM
Bangalore Crumbling
World Economic Forum meets in New Delhi today to buy The Hot India Story. Foreign investors have poured a record $7.3 billion into an economy fuelled by a city that is the countryâs biggest global brand. But it could all come undone as a callous Karnataka government pushes Indiaâs Silicon Valley to the brink
SAMAR HALARNKAR
Send Feedback E-mail this story Print this story
Posted online: Sunday, December 05, 2004 at 0131 hours IST
BANGALORE, DECEMBER 4: Bob Hoekstra looks at the potholed, jammed road from his glass-clad office and shakes his head. But the crumbling road is only part of a larger rot that worries the CEO of Dutch multinational Philipsâ cutting-edge research centre.
Indiaâs tech homeland urgently needs an international airport, a metro, andâmost importantâa government committed to a work-plan that should be under implementation every day, says Hoekstra, 59, a Dutchman whoâs watched the cityâs four-year upturn covert into sharp decline during 2004.
Advertisement
Baazee.com
ââIn the last six months, we have gone back ten years,ââ said Hoekstra, a Bangalore loyalist who said his board could now question a recently approved $50-million new investment. ââBangalore represents India. If the city does not scale up fast, why come here at all?ââ argues Hoekstra, who in October startled the government by boycotting Indiaâs signature infotech event, BangaloreIT.com. ââIf we lose out now, we lose out to China.ââ
The damage to Indiaâs biggest brand couldnât have come at a worse time. Foreign investors have poured a record $7.3 billion into India this year ($1.4 billion in November alone). The topping to the rising cake of success will come tomorrow as some of the globeâs biggest names descend on the World Economic Forumâs summit in Delhi to take stock of Indiaâs journey.
Here, that journey is wobblingâliterally.
Lines of vehicles back up along the roads sealed off to allow free access to the three-car motorcade of Karnataka Chief Minister Dharam Singh.
ON LIFE SUPPORT
ââIf we donât do something very quickly, fallout as far as foreign investment goes could be serious.â
N R Narayana Murthy, Infosys
ââIâve never seen it so bad ... weâre all shouting ourselves hoarse, but itâs all falling on deaf ears.â
Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Biocon
ââWe donât see the scene improving. Hence, our decision to look beyond Bangalore.ââ
Azim Premji, Wipro
ââIn six months, weâve gone back 10 years...My investment is threatened,ââ
Bob Hoekstra, CEO, Philips Software
âMadtaiddivi, Madtaiddivi (We are doing it, we are doing it)â
Dharam singh, CM, Karnataka
ââRunning this government is a very difficult task, it requires a lot of patience,ââ Singh, 67, tells The Sunday Express with a sigh as his Ambassador Grand barrels down the four lanes of a 12-km stretch of Hosur Road, a ramshackle highway that is the main route to Electronics City, the heart of Indiaâs knowledge economy.
Down a side road, waiting as usualâeven on a holidayâis Indiaâs biotech icon and richest woman, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw. ââHow can this happen even on a holiday?ââ fumes a frustrated Shaw later, narrating how growing jams are making two-hour commutes normal, crippling employee productivity, shocking foreign partners and forcing many meetings onto the cell phone.
In July, Indiaâs richest man, Wipro Chairman Azim Premji in a rare public outburst said his future investments would not be in Bangalore. Dharam Singh promised redressal. But like Hoekstra, every CEO The Sunday Express spoke to said the downslide since has only gathered pace: if it continues, there will be no option for many but to move.
The patience that Singh prides himself on has worn thin in the gleaming glass towers and lush campuses of 1,200 IT firms and their 2 lakh employees. About a million people and industries feed off themâtaxis, retail, banking, auto sales, hotelsâfirmly driving Bangaloreâs booming economy. At stake, then, is much more than the future of investments worth about $15 billion (Rs 64,500 crore) made in this gridlocking, crumbling city of 7.2 million.
Since the Congress party began its coalition government with Singhâan affable leader with a love for Ghalib and ghazalsâat the helm in June, Bangaloreâs attempts to transform itself are rapidly unraveling: flyovers are stuck, so is a new international airport and metro, and the roads are simply falling apart.
Worse, the signals are all bad: a dedicated team of officers overseeing the upgradation of Bangalore has been systematically dismantled; and a unique government partnership with the cityâs big names (headed by Infosys MD Nandan Nilekani), which oversaw the cityâs progress over the last four years, has not just been ignored but even mocked by ministers in Singhâs government.
ââIf people know youâre trying, they give you the benefit of the doubt,ââ says the CEO of one of Indiaâs top three IT companies, requesting anonymity. ââThe previous improvements werenât Nirvana, but the system was manfully coping, the investments came on the assumption that improvements would continue.ââ
The sense of doom couldnât come at a worse time. Bangalore accounts for 35 per cent of Indiaâs software exports: expected to cross $16 billion (Rs 70,000 crore) this year.
A superheated IT growth rate of about 30 per cent means you canât get a five-star hotel room in Bangalore unless you book more than six months in advance. And no bargains: you must pay the rack rate, which now hovers around $250 a night. Visitors are often sent to resorts upto two hours out of town when the hotels clog.
So six months in a city so besieged by growth implies (thousands of new techies, new companies and an explosion of support industries) that if support infrastructure doesnât keep up, collapse is around the corner.
As he explains the difficulties of running a coalition government with a previously implacable foe, former Prime Minister Deve Gowdaâs Janata Dal (Secular), Singh does not see the irony of a nine-minute zip down a stretch of road where the Premjis, Narayana Murthys and Shaws spend at least two hours every day stuck in a daily commute that is now among the nationâs worst urban journeys.
ON LIFE SUPPORT
⢠131-km peripheral ring road, critical to decongesting the city. Plans ready since January. Land acquisition hasnât even started.
The Flyovers
⢠3 flyovers started last year now deserted construction sites. No sign that deadline will be met.
TheRoads
⢠In shambles, pavements once laid with tiles chaotically dug up. PWD minister H D Revanna (Deve Gowdaâs son) is bizarrely turning the blame on the IT industry, saying its representatives should have fixed the roads.
The Airport
⢠The Bangalore International Airport, despite getting a Central go-ahead, is grounded. No reason is being given. ââWe will clear it this month,ââ Dharam Singh said in November. Itâs now December.
The Task Force
⢠The Bangalore Agenda Task Force, a body of bureaucrats and industry that planned and implemented civic works, helped revamp and skyrocket the cityâs revenues, even built public toilets, has been ignored, even mocked by state govt
ââI met Narayana Murthy and Premji, and I told them for four years we had no rain, this year we had lots of rain,ââ says Singh. âI told them we are pro-poor, pro-farmer. Donât you need political credibility?ââ Itâs a veiled reference to the rejection of the government of his predecessor S M Krishnaâwho promised to convert Bangalore into another Singaporeâby rural voters.
ââAt the same time,ââ Singh adds, ââKrishna did good work. Bangalore now has a place in the world.ââ Isnât it time then to keep that place instead of losing it to not just to Kochi or Kolkata or Chandigarh, but China?
ââMadtaiddivi, madtaiddivir, (we are doing it, we are doing it),â says a defensive Singh, whoâs promised 15 new flyovers. ââYou can ask the people of the state, they are very happy.ââ
ââYesterday,ââ Singh continues airily, ââI opened a flyoverââ. He doesnât mention it was built by the railways over a rail crossing, and had nothing to do with his planners. ââI have a fixed time-bound programme. I have released Rs 400 crore for roads, I am monitoring day to day. There were heavy rains first. Now, work will begin.ââ
But the work is sporadic, there is no urgency. At two major flyover sites, workers and engineers have been scarce for the last six months. âWe are sorry for the delay,â proclaim signs with December 2004 and March 2005 deadlines, which simply will not be met. At one intersection spanning the crucial road to the airport, not a worker was visible over all of the last two weeks.
Not surprisingly, rivals are now seeing great opportunity in Bangaloreâs distress. ââWe are closely tracking developments in Bangalore after the statement by Mr Premji,ââ admits West Bengalâs IT minister Manab Mukherjee.
At BangaloreIT.Com, Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy tried luring IT further south. Wipro Software has got itself 200 acres in Thiruvananthapuram and Infosys 50 acres. Consultant McKinsey has set up an outsourcing centre and Tata Consultancy Services is building a training centre. All this despite Keralaâs big problemâpoor English skills.
In Tamil Nadu, English isnât a problem. TCS has acquired 70 acres for a 20,000-strong development centre, Wipro intends to ramp up its campus to 20,000 and Infosys to 25,000. A new technology park at Hosur is only an hourâs drive south of Electronics City.
World Economic Forum meets in New Delhi today to buy The Hot India Story. Foreign investors have poured a record $7.3 billion into an economy fuelled by a city that is the countryâs biggest global brand. But it could all come undone as a callous Karnataka government pushes Indiaâs Silicon Valley to the brink
SAMAR HALARNKAR
Send Feedback E-mail this story Print this story
Posted online: Sunday, December 05, 2004 at 0131 hours IST
BANGALORE, DECEMBER 4: Bob Hoekstra looks at the potholed, jammed road from his glass-clad office and shakes his head. But the crumbling road is only part of a larger rot that worries the CEO of Dutch multinational Philipsâ cutting-edge research centre.
Indiaâs tech homeland urgently needs an international airport, a metro, andâmost importantâa government committed to a work-plan that should be under implementation every day, says Hoekstra, 59, a Dutchman whoâs watched the cityâs four-year upturn covert into sharp decline during 2004.
Advertisement
Baazee.com
ââIn the last six months, we have gone back ten years,ââ said Hoekstra, a Bangalore loyalist who said his board could now question a recently approved $50-million new investment. ââBangalore represents India. If the city does not scale up fast, why come here at all?ââ argues Hoekstra, who in October startled the government by boycotting Indiaâs signature infotech event, BangaloreIT.com. ââIf we lose out now, we lose out to China.ââ
The damage to Indiaâs biggest brand couldnât have come at a worse time. Foreign investors have poured a record $7.3 billion into India this year ($1.4 billion in November alone). The topping to the rising cake of success will come tomorrow as some of the globeâs biggest names descend on the World Economic Forumâs summit in Delhi to take stock of Indiaâs journey.
Here, that journey is wobblingâliterally.
Lines of vehicles back up along the roads sealed off to allow free access to the three-car motorcade of Karnataka Chief Minister Dharam Singh.
ON LIFE SUPPORT
ââIf we donât do something very quickly, fallout as far as foreign investment goes could be serious.â
N R Narayana Murthy, Infosys
ââIâve never seen it so bad ... weâre all shouting ourselves hoarse, but itâs all falling on deaf ears.â
Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Biocon
ââWe donât see the scene improving. Hence, our decision to look beyond Bangalore.ââ
Azim Premji, Wipro
ââIn six months, weâve gone back 10 years...My investment is threatened,ââ
Bob Hoekstra, CEO, Philips Software
âMadtaiddivi, Madtaiddivi (We are doing it, we are doing it)â
Dharam singh, CM, Karnataka
ââRunning this government is a very difficult task, it requires a lot of patience,ââ Singh, 67, tells The Sunday Express with a sigh as his Ambassador Grand barrels down the four lanes of a 12-km stretch of Hosur Road, a ramshackle highway that is the main route to Electronics City, the heart of Indiaâs knowledge economy.
Down a side road, waiting as usualâeven on a holidayâis Indiaâs biotech icon and richest woman, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw. ââHow can this happen even on a holiday?ââ fumes a frustrated Shaw later, narrating how growing jams are making two-hour commutes normal, crippling employee productivity, shocking foreign partners and forcing many meetings onto the cell phone.
In July, Indiaâs richest man, Wipro Chairman Azim Premji in a rare public outburst said his future investments would not be in Bangalore. Dharam Singh promised redressal. But like Hoekstra, every CEO The Sunday Express spoke to said the downslide since has only gathered pace: if it continues, there will be no option for many but to move.
The patience that Singh prides himself on has worn thin in the gleaming glass towers and lush campuses of 1,200 IT firms and their 2 lakh employees. About a million people and industries feed off themâtaxis, retail, banking, auto sales, hotelsâfirmly driving Bangaloreâs booming economy. At stake, then, is much more than the future of investments worth about $15 billion (Rs 64,500 crore) made in this gridlocking, crumbling city of 7.2 million.
Since the Congress party began its coalition government with Singhâan affable leader with a love for Ghalib and ghazalsâat the helm in June, Bangaloreâs attempts to transform itself are rapidly unraveling: flyovers are stuck, so is a new international airport and metro, and the roads are simply falling apart.
Worse, the signals are all bad: a dedicated team of officers overseeing the upgradation of Bangalore has been systematically dismantled; and a unique government partnership with the cityâs big names (headed by Infosys MD Nandan Nilekani), which oversaw the cityâs progress over the last four years, has not just been ignored but even mocked by ministers in Singhâs government.
ââIf people know youâre trying, they give you the benefit of the doubt,ââ says the CEO of one of Indiaâs top three IT companies, requesting anonymity. ââThe previous improvements werenât Nirvana, but the system was manfully coping, the investments came on the assumption that improvements would continue.ââ
The sense of doom couldnât come at a worse time. Bangalore accounts for 35 per cent of Indiaâs software exports: expected to cross $16 billion (Rs 70,000 crore) this year.
A superheated IT growth rate of about 30 per cent means you canât get a five-star hotel room in Bangalore unless you book more than six months in advance. And no bargains: you must pay the rack rate, which now hovers around $250 a night. Visitors are often sent to resorts upto two hours out of town when the hotels clog.
So six months in a city so besieged by growth implies (thousands of new techies, new companies and an explosion of support industries) that if support infrastructure doesnât keep up, collapse is around the corner.
As he explains the difficulties of running a coalition government with a previously implacable foe, former Prime Minister Deve Gowdaâs Janata Dal (Secular), Singh does not see the irony of a nine-minute zip down a stretch of road where the Premjis, Narayana Murthys and Shaws spend at least two hours every day stuck in a daily commute that is now among the nationâs worst urban journeys.
ON LIFE SUPPORT
⢠131-km peripheral ring road, critical to decongesting the city. Plans ready since January. Land acquisition hasnât even started.
The Flyovers
⢠3 flyovers started last year now deserted construction sites. No sign that deadline will be met.
TheRoads
⢠In shambles, pavements once laid with tiles chaotically dug up. PWD minister H D Revanna (Deve Gowdaâs son) is bizarrely turning the blame on the IT industry, saying its representatives should have fixed the roads.
The Airport
⢠The Bangalore International Airport, despite getting a Central go-ahead, is grounded. No reason is being given. ââWe will clear it this month,ââ Dharam Singh said in November. Itâs now December.
The Task Force
⢠The Bangalore Agenda Task Force, a body of bureaucrats and industry that planned and implemented civic works, helped revamp and skyrocket the cityâs revenues, even built public toilets, has been ignored, even mocked by state govt
ââI met Narayana Murthy and Premji, and I told them for four years we had no rain, this year we had lots of rain,ââ says Singh. âI told them we are pro-poor, pro-farmer. Donât you need political credibility?ââ Itâs a veiled reference to the rejection of the government of his predecessor S M Krishnaâwho promised to convert Bangalore into another Singaporeâby rural voters.
ââAt the same time,ââ Singh adds, ââKrishna did good work. Bangalore now has a place in the world.ââ Isnât it time then to keep that place instead of losing it to not just to Kochi or Kolkata or Chandigarh, but China?
ââMadtaiddivi, madtaiddivir, (we are doing it, we are doing it),â says a defensive Singh, whoâs promised 15 new flyovers. ââYou can ask the people of the state, they are very happy.ââ
ââYesterday,ââ Singh continues airily, ââI opened a flyoverââ. He doesnât mention it was built by the railways over a rail crossing, and had nothing to do with his planners. ââI have a fixed time-bound programme. I have released Rs 400 crore for roads, I am monitoring day to day. There were heavy rains first. Now, work will begin.ââ
But the work is sporadic, there is no urgency. At two major flyover sites, workers and engineers have been scarce for the last six months. âWe are sorry for the delay,â proclaim signs with December 2004 and March 2005 deadlines, which simply will not be met. At one intersection spanning the crucial road to the airport, not a worker was visible over all of the last two weeks.
Not surprisingly, rivals are now seeing great opportunity in Bangaloreâs distress. ââWe are closely tracking developments in Bangalore after the statement by Mr Premji,ââ admits West Bengalâs IT minister Manab Mukherjee.
At BangaloreIT.Com, Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy tried luring IT further south. Wipro Software has got itself 200 acres in Thiruvananthapuram and Infosys 50 acres. Consultant McKinsey has set up an outsourcing centre and Tata Consultancy Services is building a training centre. All this despite Keralaâs big problemâpoor English skills.
In Tamil Nadu, English isnât a problem. TCS has acquired 70 acres for a 20,000-strong development centre, Wipro intends to ramp up its campus to 20,000 and Infosys to 25,000. A new technology park at Hosur is only an hourâs drive south of Electronics City.