Sunday, February 12, 2006

Three cheers to global Pune!

Forget Bangalore, and ignore Cyberabad, Aamche Pune is the centre of the entire buzz this year. Pune features third in the Forbes magazine list of most promising emerging global business hubs in the world for the year 2006. This seventh-largest Indian city is the seat of "countless smaller technology companies, call centres and business-process outsourcing firms", apart from IT giants, including IBM, Hewlett Packard and Wipro, says Forbes.

The world’s coveted magazine also quotes experts, saying that Pune no longer exists in the shadow of Mumbai and is gaining importance as a high-tech alternative to the poorly-planned and overcrowded Mumbai.

In the Forbes list, Pune is preceded by Chengdu in China and Toulouse in France, and followed by Poland’s capital Warsaw, Abu Dhabi in UAE and Curitiba in Brazil. These cities share a common thread -- most of them are situated near mega cities and capitals, which have exhausted their capacity.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is really encouraging. No doubt industry across the world has been interested in ivesting in this great city that has a great legacy of intellectuals and industry captains. The need of hour is to welcome these investments and see that it would eventually help improving quality of life in Pune, rather than leaving it to be another chocking city. Question here is, are our political and social leaders aware of the challenges of being the best Indian city for investors?

Medha P said...

Pune's environment should not get spoiled like Bangalore or Metros. I am happy about Pune being third in the upcoming cities' list of world for investments.

However, feel bad for Bangalore that it could not prove trustworthy for challenges. In all infrastructure and Law and Order apart from traffic control are key for success for Pune.

Anonymous said...

Pune ranked third is a wonderful news and should make every Punekar proud. But at the same time it surprises me because the city still has lot of problems which no one seems to be addressing.

I agree that Pune has a lot of potential, but it also has a lot of problems (I’m sorry if this sounds negative) - pollution, roads, public transport, electricity, growing population etc. The list seems unending.

The most important one I think is - Public transport. It’s high time that someone decided on this (and invested money as well!) . I see a lot of articles on esakal about plans for trams, skybuses, electric buses, light rail, underground rail etc. but nothing actually happens. They don’t seem to be arriving at any conlusion on this. I think the best would be an elevated light rail system because it can carry a lot of people, it will be long lasting, it’s non polluting (and hardly any voice pollution) and also that it could be automatic – without the need of a driver. I know building such a system is expensive (building track, train carriages, electriciy, new stations everything!) but it should still be done.

Also an expressway through the city can be built. I am no expert in this area but I think an elevated highway along the river side could be built because –

1. Many important locations are along the river or not very far from the river and so they could be connected by a shortest possible route
2. There is hardly any other place to build this.
3. The construction will not cause problems to already ailing city traffic.

Anyway this much of imagination is enough for today.

There are a lot of people whom I know don't like the way the city is growing (especially the population of non-maharashtrians!). People always talk about how the city is losing its charm (Yes, the charm of a pensioner's paradise :) ).

I think one of the things that could be done is to develop an entire new city area (Hinjwadi?) adjascent to Pune with a separate corporation (just like pimpri chinchwad where a lot of industries are). Doing this will not change the city drastically and also it won’t put the city resources under pressure.

Anonymous said...

It's good Maharashtrachi Punya nagari Becoming global.
One small thing, Punyatale Marathipan pusun taku nnnnnnnnnnnaka, Punyachi doosari Mumbai karu Naka.
There is no need to loose your own idendity while you become International or so called Global

Anonymous said...

Really it is a thing to be proud of. But as others have suggested some solutions for Transport, Traffic Rules, Pollution, keeping Law & Order should be sought out as early as possible, otherwise it will loose its importance.

by Kumar, Pune 29 July, 06.

Anonymous said...

Somebody has rightly said : There are TWO countries here - One is INDIA - as briefed in , and the other one is Bharat , fully of scarcity of things !