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Artha J Soc Sci, 15, 2 (2016), 49-68
ISSN 0975-329X|doi.org/10.12724/ajss.37. 3
49
Locating Bengaluru as India’s Silicon Valley
Suparna Majumdar Kar
Abstract
Bengaluru is one of the fastest growing cities in India.
This paper traces the emergence of Bengaluru as one of
the leading hubs of Information and Communication
Technology as well as Research and Development in
India. This is rooted in a complex combination of
historical forces such as leadership during the colonial
and post-independence periods, the influence of the city‟s
colonial past, infrastructure development, as well as the
impact of policy, and shifts in the same in independent
India. Some of the more recent forces that have helped to
shape the city have been the investment in educational
and research institutions of high repute as well as in
Public Sector Undertakings which resulted in the unique
character of the city and its culture. These, along with a
favourable policy climate, have been influential in the
emergence of the city as a global leader in the field of
Research and Development and Information Technology
which has earned it its nickname of the „Silicon Valley of
India‟.
Keywords: Bengaluru, Information Technology, Silicon Valley.
Introduction
Bengaluru, the capital of Karnataka in South India, has emerged as
a hub for organizations working with Information and
Department of Sociology, Christ University, Bengaluru, India;
suparna.kar@christuniversity.in
Artha J Soc Sci ISSN 0975-329X
50
Communication Technology or IT and ICT. It has been widely
described as the „Silicon Valley of India‟, the „Silicon Plateau‟ as
well as the „IT City of India‟. Newspaper reports (The Hindu, 2010;
DNA, 2011) have been referring to Bengaluru as the Silicon Valley
of India since the late 1980‟s. This nomenclature has been widely
reflected within academia, as well as in popular understandings
over the years (Heitzman, 1999, 2001; Mascarenhas, 2012;
Parthasarathy, 2004; Patni, 1999; Saxenian, 2000; Stremlau, 1996).
Today, the city is also gaining the title of the start-up city or the
„start-up capital‟ of India (India IT-BPM Overview, 2016; Venkat,
2015).
Bengaluru is called India‟s Silicon Valley with reference to the
original Silicon Valley in California, USA, which has been one of
the world‟s oldest major hubs in Information Technology. This
allusion to Bengaluru as the Silicon Valley is a reference to its
significant position in the field of IT and ICT, as well as its
longstanding association with science and technology, and research
and development. This paper traces the emergence of Bengaluru as
a hub for IT and its evolution into India‟s Silicon Valley with
special emphasis on the forces that contributed to this process.
Brief History of the city
What we currently known as Bengaluru was established in the
sixteenth century even though some of the earliest archaeological
references to the city date back to the ninth century. The
foundations for the current city were laid by Magadi Kempe
Gowda who built a mud brick fort around what is central
Bengaluru today in 1537. This fort covered the pete area in the city,
today‟s Chickpet and the surrounding market area. Since then, the
city has been controlled by the Mughals, Wodeyars and then Hyder
Ali and Tipu Sultan, following which the British set up a
Cantonment in the early nineteenth century. Bengaluru, has
evolved in tune with these historical shifts. The pre independence
city had a dual character centred around the pete area and the
British Cantonment.
The city has grown rapidly since its inception and is home to over
10 million people. It is one of the fastest growing urban areas in
Suparna Majumdar Kar Locating Bengaluru as India‟s Silicon Valley
51
India today. Figure 1 shows the magnitude of the increase of the
population from 1941 to 2016. The data for 1941 through to 2011
has been derived from the Census of India, while the population
for 2016 is based on a projection provided by the Directorate of
Economics and Statistics in 2013. This increase has been an outcome
of a combination of reclassification as well as population growth
due to natural increase and migration.
Fig1: Bengaluru: Population growth
The density of population in the city has also increased by 47% to
4,378 people/square kilometre over the past decade. This increase
has been manifold from the population density of 421 in 1971 to the
4, 378 in 2011(Census of India, 2015). According to the Director of
Census Operations, Karnataka, “One in every six persons in
Karnataka lives in Bengaluru.” According to the same source,
Bengaluru has proven itself to be a very attractive destination due
to the economic growth that it has enjoyed.
IT in Bengaluru
The IT sector plays a significant role in the economy of the state in
general and the city in particular. 21.4% of the Gross State Domestic
Product of Karnataka is derived from the export of software. The
KIG 2020 report (2012, p. 5)states that 44.6% of all investments
made in the IT industry in India during 2010-11 was in Karnataka.
The state also houses „a third of the software companies
contributing more than 35% of the national exports‟. 80% of the
world‟s global IT companies have centres in Bengaluru, including
setting up their Research and Development centres. The city is
406,760
778,977
1,207,000
1,654,000
2,922,000
4,130,000
6,537,124
9,621,551
10,729,019
0
2,000,000
4,000,000
6,000,000
8,000,000
10,000,000
12,000,000
1941
1951
1961
1971
1981
1991
2001
2011
2016
Artha J Soc Sci ISSN 0975-329X
52
ranked fourth in terms of being a global technology cluster closely
following Silicon Valley, Boston and London. Bengaluru has more
than 2100 IT companies and is host to almost a third of India‟s
software parks (Advantage Karnataka, 2014). The city was also the
first Indian city to feature on the „City Momentum Index‟ at 12 out
of 20 of the top technology rich cities across the world (Kelly et
al.,2016).
There were 2239 Software Technology Parks (STP) in 2012-13 and
69 Electronic Hardware Technology Parks (EHTP) in Bengaluru in
2012-13. There are 845 member units in these STPs in the city.
Bengaluru has emerged as a hub for IT in India and this is reflected
in how it attracts personnel working in that industry. In fact, a
study done by the Aspiring Minds Research Cell in 2011 placed
Bengaluru first among the cities preferred by IT Engineers for their
first jobs. The Department of Information Technology,
Biotechnology and Science and Technology (2011), Government of
Karnataka, calls Bengaluru the „IT Capital of India‟.
The report of the City Momentum Index, 2016, states that
Bengaluru„…is effectively the „Silicon Valley of India‟‟. The report
attributes this to the „mix of research institutes and higher
education establishments helping to create a solid and sizeable IT
cluster.‟ According to them 40% of India‟s IT industry is located in
the city. They also state that the city‟s entrepreneurial growth can
be attributed to the presence of international IT giants which is
boosted by the highest concentration of high tech start-ups (Kelly et
al., 2016, p.7). Nine out of the top ten IT companies listed by Forbes
Global 2000 list have also headquartered their operations in India
in Bengaluru, consolidating its significance in the sector.
It thus becomes important to examine the factors that have
contributed to this. Why did Bengaluru emerge as the leader in the
IT sector and not cities like Mysuru or Chennai? What were the
historical forces that contributed to this? Social capital, adequate
human resources, a conducive, natural, physical and social
environment, supportive policies, infrastructure and responsive
governance are some of the factors that are considered to be
important for the development of the IT sector. This paper now
examines some of the factors that facilitated these changes in this
region.
Suparna Majumdar Kar Locating Bengaluru as India‟s Silicon Valley
53
Facilitating Factors
Historical Factors. Historically, Bengaluru was governed by
progressive leaders. Interventions by Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan
helped the city to gain the label or the „Garden City‟ of India as
they established Lalbagh, the botanical gardens, which act as a lung
space for the city. The leaders under the Wodeyars as well as those
that followed were equally progressive and focused on the
industrialization and the development of quality education in the
region. As Gowda (2010) puts it, the elites in the State of Mysore
looked at industrialization as development during the nineteenth
century and this was reflected in the implementation of projects on
hydroelectric energy, irrigation as well as industries such as the
Bhadravati Iron Works.
Colonial intervention also resulted in the development of
infrastructure in the city. Bengaluru had the distinction of being
one of the first cities to benefit from the trappings of modernity in
India. Some of these were the introduction of the telegraph in 1853,
railways in 1854, telephone in 1898, and then by air in 1940. It was
also one of the first cities to be electrified in 1906 as it used
hydroelectric power under the Cauvery Power Scheme. The excess
power that was not being used by the Kolar Gold Fields, the
original intended beneficiary of the scheme, was used to electrify
the city. The then Maharaja of Mysore, Krishnaraja Wodeyar,
believed that this would also encourage the establishment of
industry in the city.
The vision of Bharat Ratna M Visvesvaraya (1860-1962),the Dewan
of Mysore from 1912-1918, widely known as the „Father of the
modern Mysore state‟, was also instrumental in shaping the region.
He was a renowned engineer and scholar whose motto was to
„industrialize or perish‟. Visvesvaraya‟s contributions have had an
impact on the entire region and have played a very significant role
in its evolution. He believed that a population that was educated
and equipped with a necessary set of skills was important in laying
the foundations for development. This focus on education and the
acquisition of skills was reflected in his lifelong work. He also
contributed immensely to the development of industry in the state
in areas like sericulture as well as the setting up of industries like
Artha J Soc Sci ISSN 0975-329X
54
the Mysore Soap Factory, and the Mysore Iron and Steel Works
(Vyasulu, 1989).
As mentioned earlier, the British had played a significant role in the
evolution of Bengaluru. The plague epidemic of 1898 resulted in
shifting focus to health and sanitation. This had an impact on the
layout of the city as housing plans were made keeping sanitation in
mind and the Victoria hospital was established in 1900. This also
resulted in the setting up of telephone lines to facilitate
coordination of health care workers during the plague outbreak,
across the city. These changes in the layout as well as the physical
infrastructure of the city laid the foundations for the modern city of
Bengaluru. This in conjunction with the other initiatives taken to
enhance both the infrastructure as well as connectivity were
important. These initiatives reflected a focus on the development of
infrastructure which had a lasting impact on the future of the city.
Education: Stremlau (1996) emphasised the role played by both the
British colonizers in terms of their contribution to the legal
framework and their focus on English as a medium of
communication as well as the post-Independence Nehruvian
interventions. This emphasis on education was important and the
city benefitted from a focus on quality education. Karnataka is
home to more than 12 universities and over a thousand general,
medical and engineering colleges. Bengaluru is host to some of the
most prestigious educational institutions and research institutes
such as the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM-B),
Indian Institute of Science (IISC), Indian Institute of Information
Technology, Bangalore (IIT-B), Institute of Bioinformatics and
Applied Biotechnology, Bangalore (IBAB), Defence Research &
Development Organisation (DRDO), ISRO Satellite Centre (ISRO),
Indian Institute of Astrophysics and the Raman Research Institute.
Visvesvarya held that education and the attainment of vocational
skills as well as technological education would be a means for the
development and advancement of the region. The School of
Engineering established by him in 1862 was followed by 23
additional schools across the state. He was also instrumental in the
establishment of the Government Engineering College in
Bengaluru in 1917 which was the first engineering college in the
state. Other prominent schools in Bengaluru were established in the
Suparna Majumdar Kar Locating Bengaluru as India‟s Silicon Valley
55
nineteenth century. The Baldwin Boys High School was founded in
1800, St Joseph‟s Boys High School in 1858 and Bishop Cottons
Boys School in 1880. This history of formal education often with
English as the primary medium of instruction reflects the emphasis
placed on the same.
Another institution that was established to further research and
teaching in the field of science was the Indian Institute of Science
(IISc) which was established in 1909. The first batch of 20 students
joined in 1911. This initiative was spearheaded by the efforts of its
founder, Jamsetji Tata with support from Krishnaraja Wodeyar, the
Maharaja of Mysore and the Government of India. This Institute
was instrumental in establishing Bengaluru‟s reputation of being a
hub for scientific research and development. IISC is one of the
highest rated institutions for scientific research and has been the
home for highly acclaimed faculty and alumni (IISC, 2015).
Luminaries of science like C V Raman and C N R Rao have
officiated as Directors of the Institute. Visvesvaraya, HomiBhaba
and Vikram Sarabhai have been Honorary Fellows at the Institute.
The institute has also produced alumni who are leaders in research
and development in science and technology.
Bengaluru is also home to a number of prestigious and highly
acclaimed private Universities and Institutes of Technology like the
International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), M. S.
Ramaiah Institute of Technology (MSRIT) and the Rashtreeya
Vidyalaya College of Engineering (RVCE). The state too ,has many
highly acclaimed Technological Colleges such as the National
Institute of Technology (NIT), Surathkal, and the Sri
Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering, Mysore (SJCE).
These educational institutions along with other research institutes
in the city and across the state reflected the focus on quality
education as well as research and development. This has been
bolstered by numerous highly acclaimed schools which have
emphasised quality primary education and laid the foundation for
effective optimization of higher education. These have contributed
towards producing the human capital that was necessary for the
city to emerge as the IT capital or the Silicon valley of India.
Artha J Soc Sci ISSN 0975-329X
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In Independent India, Nehru defined the path to be taken over the
next few decades. India had to deal with a faltering economy which
needed a boost. In the years following Independence, development
in Bengaluru was marked by the Nehruvian philosophy of state
directed industrialization. Import substitution was adopted as an
initiative which laid emphasis on the development of Indian
Science and Technology. This focus on import substitution
necessitated the establishment of a robust public sector and
investment in research in science and technology which in turn
would guide industry.
Significance of PSUs and Industry: India invested in Public Sector
Undertakings (PSU) to lead the way towards self-sufficiency
guided by the ideals of socialism. The first Public Sector
Undertaking in the country was the Indian Telephone Industry that
was established in Bengaluru in 1948. This Nehruvian model of
import substitution lasted till the 1990s when it was challenged by
the processes of liberalization, globalization, and privatization. By
the time liberalization was ushered in in the early part of the 1990s,
India had 244 Public Sector Undertakings, many of which were
operating from Bengaluru. Nehru considered Bengaluru to be the
„City of the Future‟ and this was aided by the investments made in
the 1940s and 50s in the newly independent country. As already
stated, Bengaluru was home to many Public Sector Undertakings.
A number of these were associated with the Ministry of Defence,
Ministry of Commerce, the Council of Scientific and Industrial
Research under the aegis of the Government of India. This
investment also helped in consolidating the city‟s reputation as a
leader in the realm of science and technology.
Bengaluru was also a vibrant industrial hub. It has had a
concentration of both Central and State Public Sector Undertakings
which has been reflected in the employment in these units. A study
on employment and structural changes in the Indian industry
reiterates the same. A study from the 1980s reflects how the PSUs
attracted employees from all across the country. (ILO-ARTEP, 1989)
These factors contributed to the cosmopolitan character of the
workforce and their influence on the nature of the city. Hindustan
Aircraft was set up in 1940 and later renamed Hindustan
Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in 1964. HAL was established with the
Suparna Majumdar Kar Locating Bengaluru as India‟s Silicon Valley
57
intention of establishing a foothold in aeronautics by setting up
units to manufacture aircraft in India. It has been instrumental in
the conceptualization, design and manufacture of aircraft like the
Light Combat Aircraft and the Chetak helicopters. (HAL,
2015)Today HAL is one of the largest aerospace companies in Asia
with a prominent international presence. With more than 32,000
employees, it too has a workforce from across the nation.
Indian Telephone Industries (ITI) was established in 1948 to
manufacture components for the Department of
Telecommunications. It was India‟s first Public Sector Undertaking
which started with two plants, both of which were based in
Bengaluru till 1973 when it set up units in other cities in the
country. Their Headquarters and Research and Development unit
continue to be located in Bengaluru (Heitzman, 1999; ITI Limited,
2016).
Hindustan Machine Tools (HMT) was established in 1953 as a unit
to manufacture machine tools. It later diversified its activities and
engaged in the manufacture of watches and tractors. It also
manufactured die casting and plastic processing machinery. HMT
too has focused on active Research and Design to enable and guide
its manufacturing units(HMT, 2015). In a sign of the changing
times, the HMT watch factory shut down in April 2016. This
marked the end of an era which had been dominated by the PSUs.
Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) was founded in 1954 under the
Ministry of Defence to cater to the electronic needs of the Indian
Defence Services. Since its inception it has kept up with the global
advances in technology. BEL currently houses nine Strategic
Business Units in Bengaluru (BEL, 2015). National Aerospace
Laboratories (NAL) is another unit that moved its Headquarters to
the city in 1960, a year after its establishment in 1959. NAL is a
constituent of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research.
NAL is described as India‟s „premier‟ Research and Development
unit working in the field of aeronautics and its allied units (NAL,
2015).
Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML) was established in 1964 and
it engages primarily with Defence and Aerospace, Mining and
Construction and Railways and Metro. The Bengaluru centre works
Artha J Soc Sci ISSN 0975-329X
58
primarily on production related to rail and metro and also on
mining equipment(BEML, 2015). Central Manufacturing
Technology Institute (CMTI) and Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited
(BHEL) also have their operations in Bengaluru. BHEL, which
works on industrial engineering and manufacturing, was
established in 1964 with its headquarters in Delhi. It has three of its
units in Bengaluru, namely the Electronics Division, Industrial
Systems Group and Electro-Porcelains Division. The Electronics
Division in Bengaluru houses two of its Centres of Excellence in
terms of Research and Design. It has also constituted the Ceramic
Technological Institute in the city (BHEL, 2015).
The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) was established in
1969 with its headquarters in Bengaluru. ISRO has worked
extensively on the design and development of space technology. It
has 11 centres in Bengaluru including its Headquarters which
shares with the Department of Space, Government of India. It is
also home to the Space Commission which works on policy
formulation and implementation for the Indian Space Program.
(ISRO, 2015) They have successfully worked on satellites, satellite
launchers and the recent Mars Mission.
The fact that most of these public sector undertakings were
headquartered in the city, reinforced Bengaluru‟s reputation and
made it a centre for scientific research and development that
attracted personnel working in these sectors associated with
scientific research and development in the sector related to air and
space, telecom and electronics technology. As Stremlaustates,
„…India's central government invested heavily in building
Bengaluru's civilian science and technology infrastructure as well
as the nation's most advanced military and space research
facilities.‟ (Stremlau, 1996, p. 50). These Public Sector Undertakings
established by both the Central and the State Governments, helped
shape the culture of the city. The employees of these PSUs
contributed immensely to the character of the city. They
emphasised the development of human capital which was utilized
upon the advent of the era of liberalization, privatization and
globalization.
Bengaluru also had a formidable reputation of being an industrial
centre. A number of private companies also set up in the city. Binny
Suparna Majumdar Kar Locating Bengaluru as India‟s Silicon Valley
59
and Co had set up the highly successful Bengaluru Cotton, Silk and
Woollen Mills in 1884. This was a forerunner to the city operating
as a hub for textiles and the garment industry which continues till
date. Karnataka Soaps and Detergents Ltd established the
Government Soap Factory that was instrumental for the
introduction of the now famous Mysore Sandal Soap in 1918.
Bosch is another company that set up its manufacturing plant in
Bengaluru in 1954 and made the Motor Industries Company
Limited, or MICO Bosch, a centre for its automotive production
activities.
We thus see that the evolution of Bengaluru and its emergence as
India‟s Silicon Valley has been aided by the historical shifts that the
city has gone through. Some of the important factors that have
contributed to this have been the attitude of the leaders, their focus
on the development of infrastructure, the development of scientific
education and formal education which helped nurture this
scientific temper. The development of infrastructure, such as the
telephone, railways and air transport, which have helped connect
Bengaluru with the rest of the nation and the world also helped. All
this was aided by the shifts brought about in independent India
with the establishment of PSUs in the city, many of which focused
on science and technology.
Nair‟s work (2005), though primarily from the realm of urban
studies, also points out that the transitions that Bengaluru has gone
through can be traced through three stages, the first two of which
are marked by the dominance of the textile industry and the public
sector undertakings in the city. The third stage was marked by the
advent of IT.The advent of IT has been aided by all the factors that
have already been discussed as they helped to create a conducive
environment as well as provide an able, well trained workforce. In
addition, the progressive policies adopted by the State also aided
this process.
IT Policy and a Conducive Climate.Heitzman (1999) notes that
Bengaluru‟s reputation of being the „Silicon Valley‟ of India dates
back to the mid-1980s with the establishment of the first Software
Technology Parks or STPs in the city. This was aided by the era of
liberalization ushered in by the then Rajiv Gandhi government
which brought along with it numerous interventions and
Artha J Soc Sci ISSN 0975-329X
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innovations in the fields of electronics and technology. The
Government of Karnataka established Karnataka State Electronics
Development Corporation Limited (KEONICS) in 1976 under the
guidance of the then Chief Minister D. Devaraj Urs. KEONICS was
envisaged as a body that would enhance the establishment of
electronics industries in the state by building infrastructure and
creating a conducive environment. R K Baliga, was the first
Chairman and Managing Director of KEONICS. He was
instrumental in the establishment of Electronic City which was
home to some of the first Software Technology Parks in India in the
1980s(Karnataka State Electronics Development Corporation
Limited, 2015).
Texas Instruments was the first prominent Multi National
Corporation to set up in Bengaluru as a result to these shifts. Texas
Instruments started out in the city with their Research and
Development unit in 1986 with a total staff of 33 of which 26 were
engineers. Their revenues were US$ 0.5 million at that time. As
Texas Instruments (2016) put it, India has been a source of „great
talent, great leadership and great innovation‟.
The Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) was
established in 1984 in order to develop technology for the
telecommunication industry. The state of the art facility was
projected as a centre for excellence in the field. The Centre for
Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) was established in
1988. The Department of Electronics and Information Technology
(DeitY), under the Ministry of Communications & Information
Technology (MCIT) established C-DAC as its institute for Research
and Development in the fields of Information Technology and
Electronics. One of its early undertakings was the building of a
supercomputer. The fact that both C-DOT and C-DAC had centres
in Bengaluru aided the development of its image as a forerunner in
research and development in cutting edge technology.
Stremlau (1996)has written about the significant role played by the
software sector in Bengaluru on a global scale in spite of some the
infrastructure hurdles and stark inequality in the country.
Organizations like General Electric, IBM, and Texas Instruments
depended on Institutions working out of Bengaluru for their
computer software needs. In a reinforcement of the quality of the
Suparna Majumdar Kar Locating Bengaluru as India‟s Silicon Valley
61
work being done in the city, Carnegie Mellon‟s Capability Maturity
Model rated the teams operating out of the city very highly. The
1990s saw a shift from the export of human resources like software
programmers towards an export of finished products like software
programmes making the city a major player in the software
industry rather than being just a body shopping haven.
In a progressive move, the Government of Karnataka was the first
state to announce a „Package of Incentives and Concessions for
New Industrial Investments in Karnataka 1993-1998‟ followed by
its IT Policy in 1997. The aim was to work toward the eradication of
poverty and the empowerment of women by using the power of IT
to generate employment and adopt e-governance. Also included
were emphases on providing an environment of incubation and
incentives to IT companies.
An outcome of the IT Policy undertaken by the Government of
Karnataka in 1997 was the establishment of the International
Institute of Information Technology in the city of Bengaluru in
1999. This Institute is also known as IIIT-B and became a deemed
university in 2005. The primary objective behind the establishment
of the institute was to train engineers for the software industry
which in turn would help to strengthen Bengaluru‟s position as a
leader in the IT industry. The institute also engaged in the
important activities of research and development, dissemination of
knowledge and setting standards (Viswanathan, 1998). The success
of this institute can be measured in terms of the 1300 plus
postgraduates and research scholars working with the leaders in
the industry today (IIIT-B, 2015).
These reflect the status of Bengaluru as a city that has been a hub
for industry and technology, education and development. It is
reinforced by the fact that Karnataka was the first state in the
country to implement an IT policy. Bengaluru today is home to
many IT companies with Electronic City alone housing more than
120. Bengaluru today also houses more than 80 multinational
corporations working in software development (Mascarenhas,
2012, p. 240). In addition to setting up their software development
in the city, many organizations have made the city their home for
research and development. Some of the organizations that have
done that are Airbus, Bosch, GE, GM, Google, Microsoft, Nokia,
Artha J Soc Sci ISSN 0975-329X
62
Philips, Shell and Toyota. This reinforces the cities significance in
terms of both IT as well as Research and Development.
Patni (1999) wrote about the emergence of Bengaluru as the
„technological capital of India‟ and its transformation from the
„quiet summer retreat‟ of the Raj. Patni identified English speaking
skilled workers, a supportive government, relaxed atmosphere and
relatively low wages as the driving forces behind this
transformation. Heitzman (1999; 2001) looked at the city‟s
association with the software industry as well as its focus on
technology, research and industry. Cities like Bengaluru act as
centres for technological innovation which drive the economy and
also define directions of migration. This can be studied in terms of
„milieux of innovation‟ as evolved in the work by Castells and Hall.
Heitzman(2003, p. 57)described the city as a „technopole‟ or a
„growth pole‟ and states that Bengaluru emerged as the „Silicon
Valley‟ as long back at the mid-1980s with economic liberalization
and the establishment of software technology parks.
According to a listing by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at
Carnegie Mellon University, USA, and the Capability Maturity
Model (CMM) developed by them, approximately half of the
world's level five certified companies are present in Bengaluru
along with a significant portion of the leading IT companies of the
world, including Infosys, Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services, Oracle,
Dell, IBM, Microsoft, Accenture, and Cognizant. NASSCOM‟s
ranking of the top 20 IT service companies also lists out companies
which have a significant presence in the city. This has been
accompanied by a concentration of some of the best minds working
in the industry which in turn has helped to attract more human
resources and has contributed to the successes experienced by the
industry.
Conclusion
Bengaluru is, thus, widely known today as the Silicon Valley of
India as this term alludes to its dominant position in the field of IT.
This is reinforced by the presence of a significant number of
globally prominent organizations as well as their work force who
have engaged with IT processes as well as Research and
Suparna Majumdar Kar Locating Bengaluru as India‟s Silicon Valley
63
Development. Some of the significant factors that have helped
Bengaluru to consolidate its position as a leader in the field of
Information Technology include its early advantage in terms of its
prominence in the field of science and technology with a focus on
research and development. This took place due to several reasons
such as the encouragement by the various local, regional and
national leaders and administrators dating back to the pre-colonial
period, who have been at the helm of the city and the broader
region. Many of them have emphasised development and the
growth of infrastructure along with investment in quality
education.
Basic infrastructure within the city along with its connectivity with
the rest of the world through the telecom networks as well as its
physical connectivity in terms of rail networks and air transport
have helped. Other aspects of infrastructure which aided this
process have been the early availability of electricity, sanitation
facilities and good health care. These have made the city an
attractive option for the population that was required for the
evolution of the field of IT in the region. The fact that Bengaluru
was one of the first cities in the region to benefit from these
advances, clubbed with the human resources available, helped it to
later consolidate its position of dominance in the emerging field of
IT.
Its focus on quality education, research and development have
therefore been vital to this process. This was reflected in the
establishment of the various schools and institutions of higher
education and research and development, especially in the fields of
science and technology. The establishment of numerous public
sector undertakings, many of which were associated with the fields
of science and technology, have made the city a centre for
technological advancement and also given it its cosmopolitan
character. PSUs like HAL, BEL and ISRO have contributed towards
this. The focus on quality primary and higher education,
engagement with research and development in the fields of science
and technology, long association with PSUs created a conducive
environment for the nurture of human resources and the necessary
social capital that were optimized the IT sector.
Artha J Soc Sci ISSN 0975-329X
64
Bengaluru‟s geographical location has been important aswell. The
fact that it is centrally located within the nation as well as its
comfortable and salubrious climate have made it an attractive
destination for many. So has been the investment in physical
infrastructure which has been accompanied by the setting up of
companies working in the IT sector in the region. This geographical
location has also enabled companies established in different time
zones to set up in the city in order to ensure seamless work
throughout the day as the workers here could take up from where
those in different time zones left off. This was part of the business
process outsourcing initiatives which were a significant part of the
IT sector in India.
All these factors have helped the city emerge as a leader in the field
of IT in the region as well as globally. This has helped Bengaluru to
consolidate its position as the Silicon Valley of India. This has, in
turn, brought about numerous shifts which have altered the very
fabric of the city by changing its composition, culture and lifestyle
as well as the natural environment within which it exists.
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