Chennai - the new bangalore ?

No other city in India evokes such extreme responses among IT pros as chennai,it's petty much between two gangs ,you either love chennai or hate chennai,and the very small minority like me who are either neutral or resigned to the fact that they may have to settle down in chennai.

Either way chennai is here to stay on the Indian IT map.

Consider chennai's competition - bangalore, hyderbad,pune,mumbai and NCR ( delhi and gang) and of course the new kids on the block i.e bhubaneshwar,kolkotta,kochi.

Bangalore: in red
State govt in a deep slumber
Complete neglect of bangalore's already crumbling infrasturcture.
Rising real estate prices
Higher cost of living
Show me the airport ( internatianal airport is not ready till 2007 ,that too on a very optimistic note)


Delhi : surviving
Infrastructure (delhi metro is probably the only good thing to have happened )
Rising cost of living
Higher real estate prices

Still looking to become hub fo BPO operations ( too early though )

Hyderabad : change of priorities
Hyderabad did get a head start due to Naidu.
But now that Naidu is history ,priorities have changed.
New govt for obvious reasons is concerned more about rural development.
Hyderabad international airport should bring some good news ( due by 2007)
Some good projects in pipeline ( knowledge corridor , hardware park )
Biotech is booming ( biotech + pharma is the only sector where hyderabad is neck to neck with bangalore)
Very good image of 'safest city in India' and friendly people.
City needs to worry about rising pollution levels.
Needs a decent mass transit system.
Cheap real estate.

Microsoft ,Oracle @ Hitech City
Best city for BPO's ( Bank of america, GE,HSBC ,..)

Pune: Just popping out of shadow of big brother mumbai
Nice clean image
Decent infra
No big ticket IT investments off late
Rising cost of living
Talk of new airport

Excellent crowd :(

And finally chennai
Chennai:
First the good news,

International airport ( biggest advantange for chennai,IMHO)
Talent availability(companies say this,not that it matters,as indian IT pros are quite flexible and mobile)
Big IT investments : Major batallions of TCS,CTS,Wipro stationed in chennai
Existing local train system (hail the colonial masters !)
Availability of cheaper real estate (chennai is more like cluster of towns than one big city)
Very pro-active state govt.and some good central ministers ( esp dayanidhi maran)
Moving into hardware as well ( nokia ,already kicked off their india plans and Intel in chennai ?)
Hyundai,Ford ,TVS and with other auto components chennai is already a hub of auto components manufacture .
Infrastructure ( new airport plan, bunch of new flyovers coming up ,MRT system ,IT expressway,mahindra city ...)

Bad news
Water ,Water ,Water
Now, We all know the problem with chennai is water problem
Weather (now can we do anything about that !? )
Language problem


IMHO,it is vey important for Indian IT that there are alternatives to banglaore and death of bangalore (god forbid!) should not be the end of the road for Indian IT. May the best (indian) city win!