By Papiya Bhattacharya,

India’s IT capital Bangalore is at the cross roads. While the city has become the destination for global tech majors for their India operations, it continues to struggle to keep its infrastructure on par with the growth. Technology firms are growing slower in Bangalore when compared to other cities such as Pune and Chennai as companies find the traffic oppressive, day-to-day life more expensive and land for expansion is limited. Are these concerns or not?

Karnataka’s IT and BT Secretary, M N Vidyashankar, who also heads the e-governance department, says these issues are not a major concern. In fact, Bangalore is attracting Biotechnology and Nanotechnology firms due to its eco-system.

[Q] Are IT companies shifting away from Bangalore to cities like Pune?

[A] IT is definitely not shifting from Bangalore to other cities in the country. On the other hand, Bangalore continues to attract more and more investments particularly in high-end technology areas. The brand ambassadors of Bangalore are none other than the MNCS who have set up shop in Bangalore and are continuing to flourish. Texas Instruments, Microsoft, Huawei, Cisco, Intel, IBM and Microsoft among others, you name them and they are all here. Many of the MNCs are expanding not only in Bangalore, but also in other cities of the State. Our home grown companies TCS, Infosys and Wipro, are continuing to hire people for their operations in the city.

[Q] The state’s plan was to bring up tier two cities as technology hubs. What is happening with the plan?

[A] Bangalore has undisputedly emerged as the innovation and R & D hub of Asia. The ICT Policy 2011 released recently also aims at strengthening and consolidating R & D and innovation in Bangalore.
The Tier-2/3 cities of the State are seeing a lot of growth happening in IT and BT sector. R & D may not be happening there as much as it happens in Bangalore, but the Tier-2/3 cities are definitely catching up on software development, BPO, ITeS areas. Mysore, Mangalore, Hubli-Dharwad and Shimoga are doing well in the IT field. The Department is also pushing Gulbarga and Belgaum as cities for IT growth. Keonics is developing IT Parks in the Tier-2/3 cities. The IT Parks in Shimoga and Gulbarga would be operational before the end of this year.

[Q] The Department of Information Technology has aimed at collaboration between industry and academic research with Bangalore Nano. How is this collaboration going?

[A] Bangalore Nano has provided the prefect platform for research and industry collaboration (RICH). In fact, the RICH presentation and the Poster presentation at the Bangalore Nano event have emerged as attractive platforms for young researchers. During the 3rd Bangalore Nano held last year, there were eight young presenters who spoke on the potentials for research and industry collaboration. The presenters represented institutions from both India and abroad.

[Q]Will Nanotechnology become the new focus for the state?

[A] We have led the country in IT and Biotechnology. We would like to see the same replicated in the Nanotechnology field too. In IT, we would like to gain prominence in hardware development just as we have done with software. Our vision is to provide an ideal eco-system for the growth of IT, BT and S & T all over the State. We strive to ensure that capacity building is in pace with the requirements of the industry and research institutions.

[Q] Please elaborate on the use of IT in Karnataka Government.

[A] Karnataka is perhaps the first state in the country to develop software in the local language. The Nudi software is now used in all government departments. The services given by the State government to the citizens are on the Kannada software platform. The departments in the State Government use Kannada Software for their administration.