Sushil Mantri of Mantri Developers, in an exclusive chat with this newspaper, described Bengaluru as the human resource capital of the world and said that compared to the rest of India, developers in Bengaluru are more organised and they have very professional standards as they cater to the needs of the high-end multi-cultural society.
But in case of Karnataka, the nearest competitors for a large city like Bengaluru are Hubli and Dhaward, but they are still not near. There is a huge difference between other states and Karnataka.
In Bengaluru, the weather is a god given gift. Everyone prefers to come here. Since Independence, then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru decided to have all the sensitive PSUs in this city, because, area-wise, it is at a very safe distance from the sea and there is no possibility of an air attack. All sensitive and large industrial installations like the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) are located in Bengaluru. Due to these positive developments on the public sector front, a lot of educated class employees started to come and live in Bengaluru. The city has all kinds of high tech industries because of the presence of the public sector and people of a highly educated class in Bengaluru.
The highly educated class includes people like engineers and it knows the importance of education and hence the level of talent and skills available in Bengaluru is very high, making it the human resource capital of the world.
Mantri said that he hails from Pune which has similarity to Bengaluru in terms of the presence of highly educated people and the presence of mutltinational automobile companies there.
Bengaluru has grown as everyone wanted a “backup” and Bengaluru was the best destination for the large educated population. Bengaluru has become prominent in the world map as an IT destination and that has changed Bengaluru into a mega Metro city which has has overtaken many major cities.
We did a survey a few years back in Jaynagar and Malleswaram and found that out of every four house, one person is overseas and not on a low profile. Further, out of three households, one person is in the IT sector and now it must be a different scenario. These people have created good wealth for the city as well as for their organistaions and for themselves.
Today, the IT sector in Bengaluru generates a whopping Rs 60,000 crore — the second largest IT revenue in the country and more than capital New Delhi.
There has been a 16% year-on-year growth in population compared to 2000, which is really phenomenal for any city. If you see the city before 2000 and after, there is a huge difference.
It is we who created the world class IT infrastructure. International construction quality and standards have helped the MNCs bring their offices in Bengaluru and station their employees here. We have been able to provide housing facilities and international standards of living to these people.
Today, as far as VAT, service tax and stamp duty are concerned, the maximum collections come from the developers.
Last year, Bengaluru was able to absorb 14 million square feet of office space for IT which is 44% of entire India’s requirement. This does not include companies like Infosys and Wipro because they get the land from the government.
To sum up, Bengaluru is a “truly international city with Indian values”, Mantri said.