First Impressions of Bangalore

Bangalore is the city which is now known to be the Tech Capital of India and the Outsourcing Capital of the world. The city almost gets in half the revenue generated by the IT and ITES industry. It is also the R&D capital of the country as it is home to quite a few research organizations like IISc, HAL, DRDO, ISRO, IT R&D, Biotech industry, Silk research and numerous other things. It also boasts of an IIM institute. It also happens to be the Biotech IT consulting capital of the country. The IT revolution here started in the mid-80’s when Sam Pitroda facilitated the setup of the first Technology park in the country, the TI campus. The city was supposed to be developed as the electronic capital of the country. From there the journey began and lot many first generation companies started to setup shop here. Infosys and Wipro seem to be one of the earliest to set their foot here apart from Texas instruments. By the late 90’s people started to realize the IT boom and thus Bangalore came into prominence. Early on Bangalore was a city of retired people with loads of gardens and water tanks in around it apart from being the capital of the state of Karnataka. It is spelt as Bengaluru in Kannada, but is more famously known as Bangalore in its anglicized form.
Bangalore was a sleepy city which suddenly woke up because of the IT boom but has been very very slow to react in terms of infrastructure related aspects. From a small population of about 17-18 lakh people in the mid-80’s it grew to 32-33 lakh in the early 90’s and has now reached close to 60 lakh people. The population of Bangalore pales in front of its bigger cousins like Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkatta. The growth of Bangalore has been more of the educated class especially in their early 20’s. If one analyses the rate of growth of youngsters, Bangalore would be the leader by far. These youngsters are mainly fresh out of college with great deal of enthusisasm, energy and have a very high disposable income when compared to their counterparts in other cities. Apart from this they are the new globe trotting generation who has visited various countries even in their short careers so far. Youngsters from across the country visit the city in search of landing up a tech job. These software professionals with their high amount of disposable incomes have turned the economy of the city upside down. There would be about 5 to 6 lakh people in the IT arena and about 2-3 lakh in the BPO space. This population of about 10 lakh population must be generating atleast 10 lakh more people who basically are involved in servicing these people. Apart from these they would have about 10 lakh people as their family members. This basically amounts to half the people of Bangalore whose life is touched because of the Tech industry. Out of the remaining 30 lakhs a few people are in the government machinery, political organizations, construction industry, laborers’, NGOs, religious establishments, manufacturing industries and trader folks. Out of these also few people are still indirectly because of the IT industry. For example the people in construction industry, daily wage laborers’, municipality people and others. All in all the city is virtually dominated by the techies now.

The infrastructure of the city is literally in shambles. The city is mainly dominated by individual houses and not apartments. The latest growth also is a mixed bag. The construction quality of the apartments built here is also not that great. The individual houses that have been already built are from pre-90’s and the Bangalore Development authority (BDA) has also stopped developing and allotting plots after a decade and a half. The growth now again has shifted back to the private sector that are developing the lands with the help of BMRDA which is not that stringent and does not help much in creating the infrastructure. Its main role is to approve the projects legally. The individual houses tend to be very small in size as the common man could not afford bigger plots and hence had to maximize the best possible way out. The growth of the city has been mainly in the South and South east of the city. The only airport which Bangalore boasts of was mainly built to cater to the HAL test sorties and a few civil airlines. It is no more able to handle the pressure. A new airport has been sanctioned on the outskirts of the city towards Northern part of the city and the work on it has already started. It will be 2009 by the time which it starts functioning. The city is slowly and steadily shifting to that direction now. Going further on to the public transport and the road/rail network, Bangalore still does not boast of a Metro or local train kind of a infrastructure. A Metro rail has been sanctioned by the GoI a few weeks back but it is a bit late to start according to me. The city boasts of 8-10 main exits – Hosur Road, Bannerghetta Road, Kanakpura Road, Mysore Road, Magadi Road, Tumkur Road, Bellary/Hyderabad Road, Old Madras Road, Airport/Vartur Road and Sarjapur Road. Tumkur and Magadi Road are the main roads which are flanked by the Manufacturing industry at Yeshwantpur and Peenya. Mysore Road and Kanakapura Roads are mainly used to bring in the trading goods and for the people in the adjoining districts of Mysore and Mandya to stream in to the city. Hosur Road, Bellary Road and Old Madras Road were used for resources to stream in from the neighboring states. Now the situation has changed. Old Madras Road, Sarjapur Road and Hosur Road have been flanked by the Tech companies and the Bannerghetta Road, Kanakapura Road along with the 3 mentioned roads have become a haven for the IT junta to reside. The property prices in these places have grown manifold all of a sudden. The city had a Ring Road network on the lines of Delhi but has fallen under the great pressure put on them. They are just 2 + 2 lanes with no provision for a service lane and this very fally brings to the core of the traffic problems. The city over and above that did not possess even a single flyover prior to 2002. It’s only in the recent times that a few have them have become functional. The average speed on the roads, the only way of conveyance, is pathetically low and is around 15 Kms on an average across the whole city. The average speed should be close to 30-35 kms/hour. The city has embarked upon a task to de-congest the main roads. The various ways in which it is going about doing these is – Metro Rail project, Few more flyovers planned, peripheral ring road, elevated road from Silk Board to Electronic city on Hosur Road and the Mysore – Electronic City link road. The government is also encouraging the companies to shift to other locations in the city like ITPL and Devanahalli side by offering lands to the companies at a lower cost. But all of this is not slated to be ready before the second half of 2008. Let all Bangaloreans pray for early completion of all these projects. Till then GOD SAVE BANGALORE.