The Bangalore Syndrome

As soon as Karnataka Express pulled into Bangalore Cantonment station on that

January evening, I knew my stint as an IT journalist to cover South India would

be enjoyable. Right from the word go, the city proved to be very receptive. The

coolies who came in to take my luggage were very polite and accommodative, one

of my office colleagues had come to pick me at the station and take me to the

house where I would be staying, the railway station officials whom I contacted

for taking my bike from the brake-van were very co-operative. When I reached

home, the nice landlady had a good hot dosa meal ready for me.

Anybody with any common sense could have guessed that if IT was to grow in

India, if lots of multinationals were to come to India, Bangalore would be the

first choice for most of them. The people, the climate, the education

infrastructure, the work culture-or the works, as they say-influenced

hi-tech's preference for Bangalore. Yet, nothing was done to keep pace with

the growing industry, and we can see the result-whether it is roads, or office

space, or environmental pollution, of cost of living, or crime, or power-the

city seems to have gone down on all fronts.

IBRAHIM AHMAD Many other fast-growing Indian IT destinations could be headed the Bangalore way, and it is for the industry leaders to sound the alarm

Bangalore is now paying the price for this very receptiveness. The city is

now paying a price for not having prepared itself to take care of the huge rush

of people and companies wanting to move to Bangalore. My suspicion is that many

other places such as Gurgaon, Pune, Hyderabad, and Noida, all popular and fast

growing IT cities, might also be heading in the same direction as Bangalore.

From my personal experience, Gurgaon-where my office and home is-is clearly

headed for trouble. Life, both at home and work, is slowly becoming problematic,

compared to what it was a few years ago.

Let us all thank people like Premji and Narayanamurthy who have now publicly

displayed their anger and agony about how things are in the Silicon Valley of

India. While they should be running their companies, they are now being forced

to take up some of the work that our political leaders should be doing.

In the process they have also set off the first of the alarm bells. In the

long run, if the overall infrastructure is ignored, growth will hit a

bottleneck. I must point out here that for many people in the US and Europe,

Indian IT is actually Bangalore. If they hear that Bangalore is running into

problems, they will not look at other cities in India, but at other countries.

It is therefore very important, that the industry does its utmost to convince

the government that if Bangalore gets a bad name, the entire country will be

affected.

What many of you might not know about Bangalore is the indifference that

state government seems to be showing to the plight of the IT community.

According to senior figures in the industry, the industry has been trying to sit

down with the government for a meaningful dialogue on this, but in vain. The

lesson for the IT industry in other states is that the government will take its

own sweet time to take action on these issues. The industry, therefore, needs to

make its voice heard in one clear stream so that things will start moving in the

next few months.

Industry associations such as MAIT and Nasscom will have to start considering

national physical infrastructure also as part of their mandate, if they want

India to be on the global IT map. They should start lobbying for better roads,

airports, and flyovers.

What is also important here is that industry leaders should also try out the

"Chandrababu Formula" for taking their state forward. It is said that

initially Naidu was not particularly keen about IT, but the moment he was made

to realize that infotech would generate revenue and employment for the state, he

got interested. West Bengal is another such story in the making, where the chief

minister has taken the driver's seat. The un-co-operative chief ministers and

politicians cannot be enrolled by aggressive posturing alone, for not everybody

has the stature and courage to take on the mighty politicians.

The author is Editor of Dataquest IBRAHIM

AHMAD