East Hyderabad – The Next Hub for IT/ITES Growth

It is no longer Madhapur! A lot of activity is happening in the East side of the city – Pocharam, Uppal, Adibatla, etc. For many of the IT/ITES companies, it is the new destination. Infosys has its new branch at Pocharam presently with an employee strength of 6,500, which is expected to become a team of 45,000 – largest in the country. IBM, TCS, Genpact, Cognizant and many more companies are moving to East.

Why many of the big players are eyeing East parts of the city? What are the issues with other parts of the city or what is so good about East? Let us see in this article.

West
West part of the city, i.e., Hitech city and other parts in and around the outer ring road are already developed. There is no scope for further development, as any kind of expansions will affect the Osman Sagar and Himayath Sagar catchment areas. This will lead to problem for drinking water and ground water levels. Further, even if any kind of expansion is forced, it will have to move out of the ORR, which becomes too far from the city. This will lead to long commute, increased congestion, traffic and pollution.

North
Most parts in the North come under cantonment area and SCR (South Central Railway). Major part is military area, in which all the development and maintenance works are carried out by army. Some of the areas and roads are highly restricted for entry of general public. There are many toll gates and check points, which may obstruct the ease of traffic. Population in this region is increasing, but not the road connectivity. Mostly two lane roads, though lot of open land is present on both sides.

South
Not much modern life is seen when compared to other parts of the city. There are no new organized offices or positive developments (political, social and business) seen in this area since years. Low pass percentage in education, as majority of the population is below poverty line. This area is also susceptible to communal violence. Curfews are imposed unexpectedly, which affect the day-to-day life, transportation and pose threat to employees.

East
There is a huge development in this area as it has great potential to be a good residential as well as business center. With lot of city and migrant population settling in areas like A.S.Rao Nagar, RK Puram, ECIL, there is lot of scope to track the immigrant population.

Locational advantages of East Hyderabad

Good local talent:

• Nearly 40 to 50 lakh city populations under the age of 25 years reside here, and are actively looking for jobs.
• Probability of availability of talented individuals is more in these areas due to presence of good institutions
• Hundreds of good schools and colleges are already established – HPS, Little Flower, St. Anns, Kendriya Vidyalaya, etc.
• Lot of engineering, pharmacy and management colleges – OU, CVR, Aurora, Srinidhi, etc.
• Youth coming from well educated and social family backgrounds are present. The population here is well connected with city’s cosmopolitan culture. Hence, they make up for the quality human resources.

Easy and convenient commute

• Easy to reach from center of the city – 20 min from Sec’bad/Nallakunta/Begumpet; 30 min from Himayathnagar/Narayanguda/Abids
• Direct road connecting A.S.Rao Nagar to Secunderabad
• Inner ring road – one of the widest roads in the city
• Close to outer ring road & International airport – 45 min from Uppal Ring Road
• 2 highways passing through it – 202 (Hyderabad to Chattisgarh) – 6 Lane highway & NH9 (Pune to Machilipatnam)
• Good rail and road network – makes it easy to commute – has metro rail line passing through Habsiguda, Uppal and Nagole with major terminal at Uppal and L.B.Nagar

Good living environment and facilities

• You can find a good number of residential colonies. Areas like Hubsiguda, Tarnaka, Ramanthapur, A.S. Rao Nagar and Uppal have well organized colonies
• Good social environment – lot of state and central govt. employees live in ECIL, A.S.Rao Nagar and Uppal
• Close to good neighborhoods – Secunderabad, Mettuguda, Marredpally, Sainikpuri, etc. People here are well educated, have cosmopolitan outlook, have social and cultural values and are pure urbanites (living in the city since years)
• Access to good number of city clubs – Nizam Club, Hyderabad Boats Club, Deccan Club
• Easy to get domestic help. This makes it easy to manage life, as few villages surrounding these areas have people willing to serve as house-maids
• High level of ground water, as Musi flows from West to East
• Shopping complexes and vegetable markets within 15 min reach of residential colonies
• Hospitals in 15 to 20 min reach – Kamineni, Gandhi, etc.

Commercial establishments
With Uppal Industrial Development Area (IDA) and many other state and central govt. establishments like ECIL, IICT, CCMB, ATI-EPI, NFL, BPCL & IBP, FCI, L&T ECC Infrastructure, Ashok Leyland, HPCL, HEL (Hindustan Electricals Ltd.), Doordarshan, NIN, NGRI, Survey of India, Tata Institute, GSI, etc. in place since many years, East Hyderabad is not new to industrial development. Rather it has much organized planning for industrial development, when compared to Western Hyderabad. Genpact already has a big office at Uppal.

List of upcoming and notified SEZs
There are many SEZ’s that are notified in the east Hyderabad. Few areas with high number of notified SEZs are – Uppal, Adibatla, Pocharam village and Narapally. Some of the major upcoming organizations in this area in next few years are:

• Infosys, Pocharam
• IBM Center
• TCS, Adibatla
• Tata Aero Space, Adibatla
• Mind Space, Pocharam
• Genpact India Business Processing Pvt. Ltd., Shameerpet
• Cognizant Technology Solutions, Pvt. Ltd., Adibatla

East Hyderabad has been one of the greatly neglected areas in the city. This is high time the upcoming IT/ITES companies realize and capture the huge potential that this area offers. Further, this part has more advantages than the West Hyderabad, mainly in terms of good quality human resource – key for the strategic development of good, professional organizations.