PICTURE SPEAK
WAR ZONE: Krishna (left) Murthy

It would have been yet another meeting with Karnataka Chief Minister Dharam Singh, one on Bangalore's infrastructure, or the lack of it. As usual, Infosys Chairman and Chief Mentor N.R. Narayana Murthy came armed with weapons of the infotech world-a laptop loaded with a PowerPoint presentation on urban-rural reforms. To buffer his arguments, Murthy had roped in former Citibank executive and policy analyst Ramesh Ramanathan, who now runs a civic-rights initiative called Janagraaha. Sensing trouble, Dharam Singh called in the man he owes his job to: Janata Dal (Secular) chief and former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda.

PICTURE SPEAK
WAR ZONE: Gowda (left) Dharam Singh

The hall echoed with charges and countercharges at the in-camera presentation. True to form, Murthy displayed his impatience with bureaucratic sloth; he was frank and ruthless. As with the rest of India, much is wrong with Bangalore's infrastructure: traffic jams, inadequate drainage facilities that saw floods drown parts of the city and an airport that has been on paper for 15 years. Thanks to the unplanned growth and woeful services, the city, which has long been robbed of sobriquets like the "garden city", "pensioner's paradise" and the "air-conditioned city", is close to losing its latest title, "Silicon Valley".

Murthy suggested that unless the Government stuck to its promises, key sectors like information technology (IT) would find their fortune outside the state. The veiled threat hit home. Expectedly, a stung Gowda lashed out at Murthy. It didn't matter that Murthy's iconic status among the aspiring middle class within and outside India far outstrips that of most politicians.

Infotech, said Gowda, was not the panacea for society's ills and asked, "What has the it sector done for the city?" It was a loaded question aimed at someone who prides himself on his ethical conduct and assumed social responsibilities. The following episodes of the battle were played out in the open. Gowda charged Murthy with doing little to push the airport project, of which he was the chairman. It is ironical, considering that the 15-year-old project has reached some distance and attained financial closure in the past five years primarily due to Murthy's networking ability with successive prime ministers at the Centre and with state chief ministers. Gowda also insinuated that Murthy's company, Infosys, had acquired land at concessional rates but had little to show in terms of employment, particularly among the locals. Murthy retorted with point by point rebuttals.

GOWDA'S CHARGES What has Murthy done on the airport front? He has been chairman of Bangalore International Airport Ltd for five years. Infotech companies have taken land at concessional rates in the name of IT development. The chief minister should review the proposal to allot 845 acres to Infosys for a software development centre and a residential township. The land falls in the green belt. We must examine the investment made by Infosys on acquiring property and the employment generated by the company. In the Infosys workforce, how many have been recruited from Karnataka? MURTHY'S COUNTERCHARGES Murthy says he has spent enormous amount of time and energy in interacting with the Government in Delhi and the state Government to make this work. The records prove it. Infosys has 397 acres of land in Bangalore, Mysore and Mangalore, besides 311 acres in the IT SEZ in Mangalore. The land has been acquired from the market and through government bodies. The 311 acres in Mangalore were acquired at market rates. Infosys had asked the Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board to "acquire the land after securing zoning requirements". The land will be used for a development centre, a school and a hospital. No concession has been sought. Infosys has invested Rs 1,744 crore in Karnataka and 22,000 jobs have been created in Karnataka alone. It has created employment for 2,500 people in other sectors too.. Of the 40,000 jobs created all over India, 10,400 employees are natives of Karnataka. So are five directors on the Infosys board, including the CEO, the CFO and Murthy.

Suddenly, the angst about the city had become a personality clash. Gowda couldn't be bothered that Murthy, along with others like Wipro Chairman Azim Premji, represents the tech prowess of a resurgent India. Neither did he care that Murthy has attracted high-profile heads of state like British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji, besides the world's top CEOs, to Bangalore and helped it emerge as a global brand. Even when he did log into the sprawling Bangalore Palace grounds on October 26 to open the country's largest infotech show, Bangalore IT.in, he did so to make the point that he was representing the mannina maga, or the sons of the soil. "it has to be used for the benefit of the larger, marginalised communities and not just for the branding of a city," he told the motley crowd at the tech extravaganza.

AIRPORT PROJECT

GROUNDED BY POLITICS   PICTURE SPEAK DELAYED TAKE-OFF: The Devanahalli airport site India's first private sector-led international airport being built by BIAL is supposed to be operational by April 2008. It will have a 4 km runway, the longest in India, and will be connected by a six-lane highway. PROJECT HAS BEEN ON PAPER FOR THE PAST 15 years ACCORDING TO MURTHY, PER DAY LOSS DUE TO THE DELAY AMOUNTS TO Rs 13 lakh Former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda may have questioned his contributions, but Infosys Chairman N.R. Narayana Murthy has been using his rapport with several of Gowda's successors at the Centre to kickstart the project that was resting on the runway. When the NDA was in power, Murthy coordinated with the Centre and the Congress-led state government that had dragged clearances. The efforts saw results. The crucial concessions agreement was signed by the three partners-the Airports Authority of India, the state government, which pitched in with 4,000 acres of land for the airport, and the Siemens-led consortium-which helped private investors begin construction work. The agreement, considered as Murthy's biggest achievement, was only a precursor to several significant deals on state support, land lease and air traffic management. Murthy would remind chief ministers-first S.M. Krishna and then Dharam Singh-that delay in clearances was costing at least Rs 13 lakh a day. The Infosys boss' meeting with prime ministers-Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who performed the first groundbreaking ceremony in January 2001, and Manmohan Singh-also speeded up the "in-principle" clearance given to BIAL in May 2005. This clearance is a good signal for other greenfield airport projects in the country. Murthy also held several meetings with key bureaucrats like K. Jairaj, who was on the board of BIAL before being posted to the World Bank, to finalise infrastructure plans like access roads to the airport, apart from the upgradation of two national highways into six-lane roads. BIAL officials say Murthy's presence also ensured that there was transparency in awarding engineering procurement contracts for the airport project. -By Rohit Saran with Ramesh Vinayak

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