BANGALORE INFRASTRUCTURE WOES WORSEN

SearchCIO.com
Arrivals at Bangalore's tiny airport are greeted with newspaper headlines screaming "Bangalore crumbling!" Like many sensational news stories, the one centered on Bangalore's overtaxed infrastructure has legs. These sorts of headlines have been greeting business travelers and tourists for years. In this case, though, the doomsday headlines have it right: "Bangalore is a national calamity in terms of infrastructure," said Azim Premi, CEO of Wipro Ltd. And he ought to know. Wipro is synonymous with Indian offshore outsourcing, and is a $1.7 billion giant with more than 100 acres of property in this city alone. "Some years back it was just bad roads, but now it's irregular power, blocked drains and mismanaged transport," said T. Kurien, CEO of Wipro's BPO unit. "The distance that took us just 10 minutes to go over a few years back, now takes at least an hour. It is putting pressure on costs," he said. more...