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Pune: A rising challenger?


Till some years ago, people living in Mumbai used to think of Pune as the perfect getaway from the maddening rush and the ideal place to stay for the weekend. But recent years have seen this small, highly literate town metamorphose into a buzzing centre swarming with IT giants. In addition to the huge number of educational institutions and universities, Pune has an admirable PC penetration ratio. Additionally, the proximity to Mumbai, coupled with a relatively pleasant climate have made Pune a favourite for small start-up companies and firms looking to set up R&D centres.

Says Deepak Shikarpur, executive director, CSI, “Pune has some of the best IT talent in the country. This can be seen from the fact that world-class R&D institutions like C-DAC, NCL, DRDO and NIV are in Pune. It has a good research ambience and good talent with R&D backgrounds.”

Pune boasts of around 20 engineering colleges and an equal number of science colleges. ITES companies can also benefit from the fact that Pune has excellent language skills like English, Japanese, French and German. IT/ITES companies are naturally keen to exploit this talent by setting up a base here.

Says Mahesh Vaidya, CTO, Aftek Infosys, “We selected Pune in 1998 to start our R&D centre and then went on expanding it into a full-fledged development centre. We currently have four development centres. The criteria of choice then was quality of technical manpower, relaxed life with strong cultural activities, which in turn promotes better research and development and relatively low employee turnover. We are happy about all these factors but a lot still needs to be done on the infrastructure front.”

If one had to point out some glaring factors that seem to halt Pune’s progress as an attractive base for IT companies, it would be power and transport. Vaidya of Aftek Infosys says that the power situation in Pune is is not world-class with the MSEB enforcing 3-4 hours of daily load shedding.

Says he, “Transport facilities are not in proper shape with chaotic traffic, small and bad roads and inefficient municipal transport. For example, the bypass to IT Park, Hinjewadi is under construction for the last two or three years. Even the Mumbai-Pune Expressway was completed much faster.” As a result, companies encourage their employees to bring their own vehicles. It is no surprise that in Pune, one can see more two wheelers than in any other city. Pune also does not have a powerful voice and is constantly compared to big brother, Mumbai.

Says Arnab Mukherjee, head of a technology consultancy firm, “Pune desperately needs companies with the brand image of an Infosys or Wipro to attract more companies to set up shop here. While Pune-based IT companies are one of the best and do cutting-edge stuff, they lose out when it comes to marketing and pushing their brands.”

This in a way also mirrors the attitude of the state government, which boasts of the best facilities for attracting IT companies, but loses out on the marketing front and does not push the city aggressively.

This article first appeared in Express Computer

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