Posted by : Anonymous on Sep 26, 2005 - 09:59 AM General

BANGALORE, India - Under pressure from business leaders, authorities in Bangalore, India's technology hub, on Thursday detailed new plans to spend billions of rupees (millions of dollars) to improve the city's potholed roads and sporadic electricity supply. Word of planned upgrades to Bangalore's sagging infrastructure first came last week after some members of the city's $6 billion software outsourcing industry and its main trade body, the Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce, threatened to boycott the government-sponsored annual technology convention in November if the improvements were not made.
City authorities at the time said they would repair 19 roads, and after a meeting Thursday with business leaders, they announced plans for more road repairs and upgrades to the power supply.

The top official of Karnataka, where Bangalore is located, Dharam Singh said: "We told them we are here to make Bangalore a world-class city."

The first step is going to be filling in potholes on the city's main roads, where traffic often keeps workers from getting to work on time. Authorities said Thursday 5.16 billion rupees ($117 million) will be spent fixing roads in the coming months.

Officials also promised to spend 24 billion rupees ($545 million) over the next two years to improve the electricity supply in Bangalore, where power cuts commonly happen several times a day.

Karnataka, which has 60 million residents, has only one-tenth of the electricity-generating capacity of California, where about 35 million people live.

Bangalore accounts for one-third of India's annual revenues of $17.2 billion from software exports and back-office outsourcing. Western technology companies including Microsoft Corp., Oracle Corp., Yahoo Inc. and Google Inc. have their offices there.

Associated Press
By S. SRINIVASAN (Associated Press Writer)
Friday, September 23, 2005 (Originally Published: 9/22/2005)


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