PICTURE SPEAK

FADED LOOK: The Garden City is now a shadow of what it once was

Atul Jalan, 39, is a stickler for punctuality. Managing director of Manthan Systems, a software hotshop with India headquarters in Bangalore and operations in Europe and the US, he keeps looking at his wristwatch as he races from one appointment to another. Jalan spends an hour in the morning traffic getting to his office, 7 km from home. A year ago it took him a few minutes. The commute back on the Lavelle Road is worse. He sometimes get stuck for two hours. Nobody can stick to a schedule in Bangalore now, he fumes.

India's fast growth, hi-tech city has to worry about many things-and not just competition from the real Silicon Valley in the US or the threat of low-cost, high-quality products from China or even the job attrition levels in the infotech industry. "If you ask me, the real threat to Bangalore is the growth explosion and unplanned development," says a former Wall Street banker Ramesh Ramanathan, who quit his cushy job to float a citizens' interest group in the city. And globe-trotting executives like Jalan would agree. Just a few years ago, the city enjoyed a charm not only as India's it capital but also as a pleasant, quiet place to live in. But the rush for space in the tech Eden has become counter-productive. More than 1,300 software and outsourcing companies-450 of them MNCs-have set up campuses, employing nearly two lakh people. This influx has pushed the city population to nearly seven million, three times more that it was 10 years ago.

"I have not seen any growth in Bangalore's infrastructure in the past five years." AZIM PREMJI, WIPRO CHAIRMAN

And the result? The roads are choked. The Garden City is designed to take only three lakh vehicles, but there are four times the number now. Frequent power cuts have stalled many a corporate presentation. Wipro Chairman Azim Premji got a rude shock when the power went off in the middle of a corporate presentation for foreign clients. Water supply is erratic and in most parts of the city, drinking piped water from the Cauvery comes at a big price. Though the Bangalore City Corporation has generally banned drilling new borewells, ground water experts say that the water level in the metropolis has depleted. The city that had nearly a thousand tanks and water bodies now cries hoarse for water. Narrow roads and bylanes, not to mention the potholes, make it difficult for two million registered vehicles to ply. In 2003 alone, 886 people died in traffic accidents. The state Transport Department officials say between 600 and 700 vehicles are registered daily. To add to the woes, the state has a power shortage of 1,500 MW, which officials say may grow to between 3,000 and 4,000 MW in the next five years if the rapid growth continues.

PICTURE SPEAK

JUST PASS: Congestion has become a nightmare for the commuting execs

"Bangalore is not a desirable place to live any more, the infrastructure has worsened," says John Azariah, chief technology officer of BrightSword, who returned from the US to Bangalore to set up his own software hotshop.

The Rs 5,000 crore metro system, believed to come as a relief to the city's transportation hassles, has not got off the tracks. Even the long-overdue new airport near Devanahalli-scheduled for operations in 2010-is taking its own time to begin. Crowded roads and unplanned traffic management systems mean workers coming late to work. Some companies have built more man-days into project budgets because of the commuting problems. Wipro has decided to look for expansions outside Bangalore. Its rival Infosys Ltd is contemplating shifting to places like Kolkata. Premji says, "We will grow at a faster rate outside Bangalore." The head of India's third largest software exporter added that he has not "seen any infrastructure growth in the past five years in Bangalore". He said Wipro, of which he owns 84 per cent, was looking to expand not in Bangalore but in other Indian cities that have tried to woo it companies.

"The metropolis should not lose its brand equity because of poor infrastructure." NANDAN NILEKANI, PRESIDENT, INFOSYS LTD

In the Dharam Singh-led ruling coalition, which came to power in May 2004, the infotech industry does not have a minister to address their woes to. After the Government was recently accused of being unresponsive, the chief minister called a meeting of industry captains and promised to address all issues on a war footing. But there are no signs of any change.

In the meantime, former chief minister S.M. Krishna, once referred to as Bangalore's CEO, has lent support to the IT leaders' woes on the poor infrastructure. "The present state of affairs cannot continue," he says. Adds Krishna: "The success of India's hi-tech and outsourcing industry was scripted in Bangalore, but the city has now become a victim of its own success."

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