These days, India's information technology capital Bangalore suffers from a creaking infrastructure and a sense of frustration amongst its denizens. But the city still continues to be the hottest for IT companies.
How?
"That is our secret. We manage to find a balance between the woes of the city and its great, charming appeal," jokes K Narasimham, an IT consultant helping various multinational and domestic companies set up shop in the city.
Narasimham gets at least five applications every week from various companies: enquiries about the right office space, human resources requirements, and infrastructure details of Bangalore.
Like Narasimham, scores of IT consultants clutching meticulous data detailing how a new company can be set up in India's Silicon Valley are frantically trying to fight the 'bad image' that the city has of late been receiving in infrastructure sectors.
The 'bad image' began when software giant Wipro Chairman Azim Premji threatened in July last year to shift his operations out of Bangalore if infrastructure facilities were not improved.
Premji then said deteriorating infrastructure, poor sanitation, frequent power failure and increasing pollution were making it impossible to run smooth operations out of Bangalore. "The infrastructure problem is serious here. To sustain and grow, we need to go to places where there are opportunities -- both manpower and infrastructure," he had said.
Since then, Wipro which employs 11,000 techies in its Bangalore centre, embarked on massive expansion outside Bangalore to cities like Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune and Kochi. It 'co-located', as it likes to term the expansion, to other cities.
A rapid explosion of growth in the past decade has stifled Bangalore. In the early 1990s, there were only a couple of dozen IT firms in Bangalore. Today, there are 1,124 Indian and multinational IT companies operating out of the city.
But over the years, the growth explosion that Bangalore witnessed did not lead to the city's planned development. Thus India's Silicon Valley is caught in a web of serous problems such as these:
A K Krishnadas, who runs Pioneer Consulting in Bangalore, says the concerns that Bangalore is no longer the city it used to be are genuine.
"But despite these problems, Bangalore continues to have a great work culture. The city is ahead of the other cities in attracting multinational IT firms because of its first mover advantage," he points out.
Thus, consultants like Krishnadas has been advising clients that Bangalore still remains the most favoured destination for IT companies.
Krishnadas says when a city grows rapidly, it is natural that teething problems should crop up. "But running away from the city is not the answer. Bangalore is trying to cope with the new situation and trying its best to improve the infrastructure," he says.
Figures available with Karnataka government's IT Department prove that despite its problems, Bangalore continues to be the top destination for IT companies.