Why Mohali in Panjab failed to become IT Hub

In 2013, top Akali leaders including the then Deputy Chief Minister, Sukhbir Singh Badal made repeated assertions that Mohali (SAS Nagar) in Panjab would soon become IT hub just like Bengaluru and Hyderabad. Similarly this year, before Panjab assembly elections, the former Punjab Congress Chief Navjot Singh Sidhu said that his party wants to make Mohali, the Silicon Valley of North India.

In last nine years, the IT Hub in Mohali remained confined to political speeches, but in reality it(Mohali) is nowhere compared to Bengaluru and Hyderabad, when one talks about Information Technology sector. Although, Mohali has an IT City for IT companies and also Aerocity to accommodate the expected wave of IT professional but it failed to attain desired growth in IT.

So, what went wrong? Let’s have a look on stumbling blocks and what needs to be done:

 High land Prices

 The high land prices acted as deterrent for the IT Sector. A report on the investment scene in Panjab by Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) released in 2008, cited Punjab’s soaring land prices biggest impediment in the way of future investments. According to policy makers high land prices and unavailability of land is a major roadblock in the way of attracting IT Industry. So, it is imperative need to create a land bank which is economical for the IT Sector or infrastructure such as plug and play type of model.

 Absence of Unicorns or biggies like Amazon

 The government never focussed on attracting big players. Big players act as a magnet, so once they move in, many MSMEs follow the suit. One would be surprised to learn that founders of startup unicorns like Zomato, Ola and Flipkart belong to either Panjab or Chandigarh, but they preferred metros over Panjab and Chandigarh since there is absence of ecosystem. So, there is need to focus on bringing anchor units like Amazon, Google or Facebook to Mohali. It is known fact that MSMEs are the bread earners of the ecosystem but technological giants are equally important for Mohali to become a real IT destination.

 Outdated Start Up Policy

The state needs to have right inspiration. If the state government thinks that they have perfect start up policy then they have set the standard too low. The state needs to look at the policies of the other states and should try to improvise its policy accordingly. The biggest challenge is that the state government doesn’t have funds. In that case, they can create PPP kind of model by involving private sector and create a corpus.

Lack of Air connectivity

 The first and foremost thing Mohali needs is better air connectivity to domestic as well as international destination as it is dire need to attract IT companies. The limited number of flights from the airport cannot be justified by the logic that Chandigarh is a defence airport. Pune’s airport is also a defence airport but still functions as a busy airport. For the city to be a true IT hub, there should be real international flights connecting Mohali to the world especially US and Europe which is missing.

 Lack of government support

The government support is very important, if it intends to make an IT Hub. Entrepreneurs claim the will is missing and flexibility is not there. For example, the approval of building plan is very time consuming. The entrepreneurs are of the view that since the land prices are very high and IT is not a real estate development so, even a week delay in approval adds to input cost forget about months delay. In order to attract IT industry, there should not be any bureaucratic hurdle and building plan and other infrastructure should be approved or provided in a time bound manner.

Absence of Venture capitalists

Startups by their very nature are fragile as they require a constant inflow of capital. There is a presence of some organisations providing funding like TiE and Chandigarh Angels Network but Mohali needs more such organisations to support the emerging startup ecosystem in the city.

 Skill Challnges

Panjab do have pool of young talent but the problem is that they migrate to tech hubs like Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Pune for better opportunities. It happens because we don’t have big tech giants. The pay scale for the IT professionals is also not very encouraging in Mohali when compared to established IT hubs. So, what IT sector needs is a better infrastructure so that companies can scale up.

........