India builds tech township

[Ahmed Omair <ao@akunet.org>]

India builds tech township
By Avina Lobo, 
February 05, 2001
URL:
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/dailynews/story/0,2000010021,20177862,00.htm

If Silicon Valley were to be built in India, would it stop software
professionals from wanting to migrate to the US? The co-founders of
Catalytic Software, Eric Engstrom, Christopher Phillips, and Swain
Porter, seem to have a strong reason to believe so. 

INDIA (ZDNet India) - And why not? Wouldn't you, after a long day at
work, love to unwind at an ice-rink, stroll along the meandering
sidewalks, shop for groceries leisurely, and then walk over to your
plush hi-tech home, built under giant futuristic domes. 

No, this is not an excerpt from one of Isaac Asimov's works. This is a
preview of what Catalytic's co-founders (also ex-Microsoft techies)
call an "information technology township," built in a bid to recruit
legions of software developers, just in time before they disappear to
the US. And sure enough, it is right here, in Cyberabad. Er.
Hyderabad. 

Spread over 500 acres, the dream town is called New Oroville, and is a
self-sustaining domed residential and office community that is
expected to house around 4,000 software developers and their families,
as well as 300 support personnel for sanitation, police, and fire in
India.  

The New Oroville dome-icilies include swimming pools, tennis courts,
and even an ice rink, apart from shops, parks and, for those who
worship more than just the computer, a temple, a mosque and a church. 

Arranged along meandering sidewalks, each house or dome-icile will be
a concrete shell 26 feet in diameter and 32 feet tall, providing 804
square feet on the ground floor. 

Each house will have a living area, master bedroom, bathroom and
kitchen, outfitted with washer, dryer, dishwasher, refrigerator and
modern plumbing. Not to mention cable TV, telephones and a
fiber-optic data pipeline connecting to the Internet. 

The domes are designed such that they can be easily expanded to three
floors, allowing more than 2,200 square feet of floor space! Residents
of this company town will be able to telecommute or to walk along
well-planned streets to offices just down the block. 

New Oroville will provide its own power with a state-of-the-art coal
plant, said Engstrom, adding that 80 percent of its water will be
recycled. Extra power will be sold back to the national power grid at
cost. 

Estimated to take around two to three years for completion of the
entire township, the project costs are expected to run up to about
$200 million, and the company expects to foot the bill through revenue
and outside investment. Phase one of New Oroville is expected to
commence in three months. This will involve the construction of one
large office dome and approximately 30
residential units. 

The company decided to erect domes instead of structures normally used
in India as domes are stronger and sturdier than almost any other
structure. Also, as domes enclose the most amount of space with the
least surface area, it has a slower rate of heat transfer, which can
help keep it cool in summer and warm in winter.

India offers the technology industry a highly talented,
English-speaking work force as well as the added advantage of being
over 12 hours ahead of Pacific Standard Time, allowing round-the-clock
work cycles for multinational corporations. 

In addition, the annual salary of a software developer is a fraction
of what salaries would be in the US. Catalytic, which has offices both
in Redmond and Hyderabad, is looking at tapping India's large supply
of engineers as contract software developers for high-level technical
projects. 

However, instead of just outsourcing certain projects to local Indian
software development companies as is the common practice followed by
companies in the US, Catalytic took the whole company to Hyderabad
with Porter, serving as the company's CEO here. 

Work for Catalytic's employees will start as soon as the first
developers are hired, and trained in the US, who in turn will train
later groups of developers in India. 

While recruiting workers is not a problem, retaining them is a
trickier proposition, even in India with most software companies
losing talented developers to other local firms or abroad to the
United States. Catalytic's plan is to offer a benefits' package that's
almost equivalent to what they would earn in the US - stock options,
salaries of roughly $8,000 per year and - best of all - a home. 

Building a techno-city in India will save Catalytic from having to
import workers to the United States, and the quality of life in New
Oroville may help the company retain would-be job hoppers.

According to the founders, the decision to build the 'corporate
campus' arose after seeing the ill-equipped infrastructure, such as
the roads. Building a company-town solves the problem of
transportation of a 4,000-strong staff between Hyderabad, 25
kilometers (15.5 miles) from Catalytic's proposed site for New
Oroville. Because of the terrible roads, such a commute would take
roughly an hour. Besides, the location of New Oroville in the
countryside allows for cleaner surroundings too. 

Employees of Catalytic will vest in their homes over a five-year
period, receiving 20 percent ownership in the home per year. While
employees would have to give up the houses if they quit the company,
Catalytic would pay former employees the value of the percentage of
the home they own as part of a severance package. 

Icon of progress in India? 
The New Oroville project has the enthusiastic support of the Indian
government, including Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who gave
Catalytic the green signal. 

On a local level, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Chandrababu Naidu too
is actively helping the New Oroville project cut through the red-tape.
The openness of the Andhra Pradesh government to technology
investments in the area was part of what convinced Catalytic to set up
shop in the state, and the company has gone out of its way to
cooperate with all levels of the Indian government in order to provide
the kind of stability investors would need. 

Naidu is reported to have called New Oroville 'icon of progress' for
Andhra Pradesh. And it could well be just that. If it succeeds, this
project is expected to create almost 4,000 IT jobs and employment for
people in supporting services as well as the possibility of a standard
of living equivalent to that of the US right here in India. 

"I guess I would consider staying back in India if an option like this
were available" said an software consultant working for a leading
investment banking company in the US, who did not want to be named.
"But only if I'm convinced that it matches the lifestyle and
opportunities that are available out here. Besides there's the
additional pull of being able the maintain an additional standard of
living as that in the US without having to leave your family here." 

Puneet Bharghava, another software engineer working in the US agrees.
"We are in the phase where the exodus from India to US is much more
than immigration back to the country, but this is not going to last
long. We may reach an equilibrium which might happen if we give
software engineers the same working conditions available in US in
India." 

Will Indian programmers hold back their visas and turn down 'dream
jobs' in the US? Only New Oroville has the answer.