Bangalore is a national calamity: Azim Premji

Bangalore is a national calamity: Azim Premji
The Financial Express

NEW DELHI, AUG 30: Bangalore is a “national calamity” in terms of infrastructure, said Wipro chairman Azim Premji on Tuesday. “When a client is in India, Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai are the three key cities he visits. It gives a very bad impression to the client. I urge the media to please write about it,” he told reporters here.


Wipro BPO chairman T Kurien told FE, “From bad roads and irregular power to mismanaged transport, the infrastructure of Bagalore is crumbling. Ten years ago, if it took twenty minutes to reach a place, now it takes at least an hour. It is putting huge pressure on costs.”

As a result, Wipro is exploring tier II cities like Coimbatore, Goa, Madurai, Vizag, Mohali and Guwahati. “We are exploring Mohali as an attractive option. North India is surely on our radar with places like Noida and Gurgaon. We would also be opening a BPO centre in Guwahati in the near future,” added Mr Kurien.

Mr Premji’s remark comes a day after Nasscom, President Kiran Karnik issued a statement in favour of IT companies who have boycotted to participate in BangaloreIT.net 2005. Mr Karnik said:”Concerns of IT companies are justified. Some of them are very vocal. But, it’s good. Both the government and industry should partner to remove this problem.”

Traffic snarls and congestion has become a major problem in Bangalore. Construction of fly-overs hasn’t kept pace with the development of the city.