Hyderabad:
It was always believed that the brand equity of Hyderabad suffered as a result of the Telangana agitation and that scared investors shunned the city. However, figures now show that Hyderabad's strength as an IT hub has not suffered a dent. In fact, the software industry has done particularly well in 2010 and will retain its 4th spot in software exports in the country.
Contrary to fears, companies have been in expansion mode. The space taken on lease by software companies in IT parks has increased by 48 per cent in 2010. And 2010-11 is likely to be one of the best years for Hyderabad's software sector.
"The talk of Telangana has not affected the growth of IT industry. In January last year, there was an agitation. That was the time Facebook came to Hyderabad, JP Morgan came to Hyderabad. So did United Health Group. During that time, they went around. It is not that they had not seen other states and other cities but they finally zeroed on Hyderabad. It was like a shot in the arm for us,'' said K Ratnaprabha, the IT Secretary of Andhra Pradesh.
The industry admits safety of their units and employees was a concern but once that was taken care of, 20000 employees were added.
"Lots of investors had lots of concerns. Many companies who are on 24x7 operations cannot afford to have a downtime of two or three days continuously. They had lot of apprehensions, but fortunately the government gave us confidence,'' said J A Chowdhary, the Co-chairman of FICCI, Andhra Pradesh.
Experts believe the entry of new firms will reflect in the software export figures from Andhra Pradesh next year. This establishes that the 'T' factor has hit neither IT nor brand Hyderabad.