The big city fight is back

Quiz question: What is the best way to get the Bangalore International Airport up and running? Answer: Encourage a Bangalorean to help Hyderabad to go ahead on its public-private-partnership airport project so that we shall burn in envy! The city based GMR Group and Malayasian Airport Holding consortia will build a Rs 1,400 crore Greenfield airport at Shamshabad on the outskirts of Hyderabad.

Bangaloreans who worry about their city going down the drain, atleast can have solace that our arch-rival city is back in the reckoning and might give us a stiff competition. Heard that GMR group, inspired by the Dubai airport model, is pushing to make Hyderabad airport into a both cargo distribution and airline hub, since the city is equidistant from the three metros. Moreover it is focussing on getting revenues from non-traditional sources which will reduce the dependence on aeronautical revenues. (hey, do you remember the word 'equidistant' being used regularly by AP's erstwhile CM Naidu!)

It will have a huge ‘Airport Village’ with a warehouse for cargo storage, retail space for shops restaurants, business centres a mini golf course and a five star hotel. Now this surely takes away the cake from us, but heard that many Bangaloreans are happy that the city can hold on its growth and leave some breathing space!

Is the talent moving away?
While we can take the blame for the sad state of our city's infrastructure, we are surely not ready to take accusation that the talent is moving away from the city. Recently MaFoi Consultants presented their Employment Survey which is a quarterly study on Indian employment trends conducted since November 2004. But the present Quarterly forecast for Apr-June 2005 has brought out some strange facts.

The Employment Index measuring the pace of recruitment in the present quarter showed that Karnataka was in the 7th spot with an index of 1.17 while Tamilnadu was at the top with 3.16 index. The surprising fact was that figure was way below national average, making us wonder whether our state has completely slowed down in its economic progress after the end of Simply Marvellous Krishna’s regime!

Another shock was Bangalore was at a lowly 7th spot with 1.28 index while Chennai topped with 3.38. Even smaller cities like Ahmedabad and Pune had better figures. MaFoi justified it by saying that the IT/BPO sectors had a smaller portion in the entire survey, while telecom, retail, hospitality, garments, pharma sectors brought in the major contribution. But Bangalore is leading in hospitality and garments sectors with companies recently moving in here. Now what should we conclude from these facts… Is Bangalore hiring less people right now or the companies are moving away from our state in the coming quarter due to our coalition government…