Unlocking growth in tier II cities Premium
The Hindu
With its policies to take the IT industry beyond Hyderabad into the heartland of talent, Telangana government has made a good beginning and tasted some success, too
If the initial phase after the State formation in June 2014 was devoted to building on Hyderabad’s image as an emerging hub for IT industry, attracting more new age firms to set up shop as also to allay fears, the next few years for the Telangana government was all about evolving strategies to accommodate a runaway growth.
Realising early on benefits of IT firms going to Tier-II cities and the challenges of letting growth concentrate in Hyderabad, especially its western fringes, the government adopted a two-pronged strategy. While one involved creating plug-and-play infrastructure in smaller towns, the other was about incentivising the IT industry to spread wings to north and east Hyderabad. Parallelly, the government successfully persuaded a few well known IT firms such as Cyient and Tech Mahindra to open facilities in Warangal, the second largest city of Telangana.
Notwithstanding the potential, the process of taking IT firms into the heartland of Telangana and closer to where presumably talent resides has been anything but easy given Hyderabad continues to remain a preferred destination.
Within Hyderabad, approximately 70-75% of IT/ITES firms have made western corridor their location of choice over the past two decades. “This is true for both home grown (Telangana and Andhra Pradesh) IT/ITES firms and the global MNCs... enabling development of a robust ecosystem which has further ability to grow and multiply,” says Samson Arthur, senior branch director-Hyderabad of real estate consultancy Knight Frank (India).
Availability of land and supporting infrastructure have been drivers of the growth in the western pockets that include Madhapur, Kondapur and HiTech City. “Successive governments have been successful at accelerating the growth of IT by creating a destination, promoting on the global map, structuring joint ventures with private sector and good governance to attract investors and occupiers to the city,” he says.
On the flip side, the challenges of such a growth are increase of concrete development, growth undispersed, pressure on infrastructure and civic amenities amongst others, he adds. The IT industry in Telangana, as per the latest annual report of IT department, employed a little over 7.78 lakh people in 2021-22 as against 3.23 lakh in 2013-14. A chunk of the headcount is in the firms’ facilities in Hyderabad, according to industry sources.
Sharp increase
Prarthana Prasad is a social media influencer, entrepreneur and a leading voice from the LGBTQ+ community. At a recent Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I) Conclave held in Bengaluru she opened up about how she is often a “token ticket” for the corporate world, increasingly contacted by brands for promotion during Pride Month.