Power-hit Bengaluru loses sheen as ‘Silicon valley’

Most of you in Bengaluru would probably expect this column to develop on the emasculated state of Karnataka’s Chief Minister who was sent packing from Delhi by his party’s elders who read out the riot act to him to shield their primary financiers in the state. His public marginalisation is the sordid stuff that politics is made of in India. But for lesser mortals of the city, “powerlessness” has to do with the alarming outages in power that has now taken on unbearable proportions.
Over the last week or so, the city has experienced not less than seventy hours of power cuts. In other major cities, the power companies at least spare the export revenue generating IT hubs but in Karnataka, there is no favouritism when it comes to making life miserable for power subscribers of all hues.

IT hubs spared cuts

I researched the incidence of power outages over the last two months in some of the major business destinations of India, particularly those that have dedicated technology corridors. Hyd-erabad’s Hi Tech City in Madhapur has not had any power disruption during the researched period.
The infrastructure head of a well known bank’s IT unit confirmed to me that they have had only one major outage during this year. All occupiers of Hi Tech City were alerted about this disruption well ahead. The Mahindra Tech Park in Chennai which houses some of the most recognisable technology companies also has had hardly any outages during the corresponding period. Mumbai’s tec-hnology concentrations of Malad and Powai, expectedly, have not had to resort to using back up generators for as long as the facilities managers of campuses loc-ated there can remember. Even Jaipur, which has bec-ome an extension of Genpact’s Gurgaon operations, has had a couple of power cuts since September.

High cost power

A senior executive of a gia-nt European company that has a strong workforce in Bengaluru’s Electronic City (which is one of the two major IT corridors in the ci-ty, the other being ITPL) pr-ivately shared with me that their company had to run the generator set for about 15 hours in October. The company’s expenditure on operating the generator set in Bengaluru works out to about 10 per cent of their re-gular power bill. In other ci-ties where this company has operations, the spending on diesel and other related ac-cessories do not even bre-ach the one per cent mark. Other than Cisco, no company of any size is expanding their operations in Bengaluru next year. Power outages and the replacement costs associated with it are indeed one of the major show stoppers for this city which has been led by some of the most inept and tunnel visioned politicians that India has produced in the recent past. The power outage menace actually cripples the lives of ordinary residents much more than that of the staff of well funded technology companies who have the resources to function on back up power for long periods, both at work and at home.

Hyderabad the next Silicon?
One is not sure if Bengaluru does indeed deserve the sobriquet of being Ind-ia’s “Silicon Valley”. The jury that comprises MNC technology companies is already voting in favour of Hyderabad if real estate uptake in the Hi Tech City area is any indicator. The ‘Pensioners’ Paradise” could soon be the “Geeks’ Graveyard”.
The author is a veteran corporate analyst and can be reached at chiranjit.bangalore@gmail.com