Bangalore was the symbol of India’s infotech (IT) prowess. In the early 1990s,we didn’t know exactly what it was that the IT companies did, but we knew the world wanted it. The boom spawned “letterhead” companies, which registered their offices in Bangalore only to be able to acquire credibility by putting the city’s name on their stationery.
Today, Bangalore has little credibility left. It seems it cannot cope-neither with the good times that led to an influx of software professionals, nor the bad, when the pressure of thousands of its new citizens began to tell on civic infrastructure. The IT industry may have been given preferential treatment by the Government, but it cannot be faulted. It has delivered on its promises: it created jobs, earned foreign exchange and set global standards. It is those who govern Bangalore who have not delivered. Blaming the IT industry for the lack of adequate roads or electricity, for its growing congestion and pollution is a red herring.
While power brokers have been making their calculations, Bangalore has been left out of every growing industry’s future plans.
Once again, the arithmetic of politics has overtaken the geometrics of economic growth.
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