BCIC protests Govt apathy, to boycott Bangalore IT.in

BCIC protests Govt apathy, to boycott Bangalore IT.in
Statistics reveal as few as 30 new companies setting up operations in 2004-2005, compared to 52 a year ago
Cybermedia News

BANGALORE: Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce (BCIC) today announced that it would boycott the Bangalore IT.in 2005 scheduled for November.

The boycott is in protest against the Government's "apathy" towards infrastructure woes, particularly in the areas of traffic congestion, power shortage and airport infrastructure.

The Government's lack of concern has subdued not just the IT industry pace, but has affected all industries and more severely the society. The protest comes from Bangalore Chamber's team of 450 members, 135 of them belonging to the IT and ITES segments.

Anant Koppar, president, BCIC said, “Companies are rightly concerned. Last year the Government promised adequate measures to address the issues.But the promise turned out to be hollow. Consider the last oneyear. Infrastructure services have been deteriorating in and around Bangalore - a city, which is supposed to hold tremendous technology promise. Our intention is not to disrupt the event, which has consistently seen our support, participation and sponsorships in the last few years. The situation, which prevails today is real and intense, and certainly demands drastic measures, or we stand to lose big time.”

The BCIC strongly believes that unless there is tangible and visible improvement in infrastructure facilities, Banglore's boom will be history, dousing MNC enthusiasm and driving companies to take their expansion strategies to other states and even countries.

The slowdown is already evident with the dwindling number of software firms choosing Karnataka as their preferred destination. Statistics reveal as few as 30 new companies setting up their operations in 2004-2005 as compared to 52 in the previous year.

Notwithstanding the fact that some of the IT giants are threatening to move their base to other cities, BCIC believes that several companies are keen on investing more if the Government can convince them of a better immediate future for the city's infrastructure. The silver lining though is that most MNC's still believe in Bangalore's potential to offer much more to Global IT than it has ever done before.