Madhapur: From a sleepy village to Hyd’s Silicon Valley

Madhapur is home to the IT industry. The heart of this area, called Hitec City (Hyderabad Information Technology and Engineering Consultancy City), is the largest IT park in India. It has the highest concentration of IT/ITES, banking and various other establishments in the city.

Hitec City is spread across 151 acres of land under suburbs of Madhapur, Gachibowli, Kondapur, Manikonda and Nanakramguda. Cyber Towers, Cyber Gateway and Cyber Pearl were the first IT structures to come up. Later on big names like Qualcomm, CSC, Tata Communications, Accenture, Tata Consultancy Services, Automatic Data Processing (ADP), NTT Data, Mahindra Satyam, Deloitte, Amazon, Convergys, Oracle Corporation, IBM, Dell, Google, Verizon, CA Inc., Infosys, Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services, AppLabs, Invensys, Keane, Cognizant, Patni, Ram Info Solutions, Cyient, Capital IQ, Genpact, Novartis, Deloitte, Knoah Solutions and many others have made the city their business centre. Real estate is on the rise with big names such as Ramky Estates, Aparna, Aliens, Lanco Infratech and many others constructing skyscrapers, luxury homes, SEZs etc, sky-rocketing the area into becoming the Silicon Valley of India.

This suburb is also home to NIFT (National Institute of Fashion Technology), which is a premier institution for fashion designing and Venkateshwara Arts and Pharmacy College, Manthan International School and CGR International School, which are leading international schools in Hyderabad. Shilpakala Vedika, an auditorium and art and culture centre, is also located here. The Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), ISB, Engineering Staff College of India, University of Hyderabad, are located in this suburb.

Madhapur has become the most preferred meeting place in India, with many international conferences and meetings taking place at Hitex Convention Center and Novotel, both world-class establishments situated in the area.

History

Madhapur, a small, sleepy village in the early 1990s, has transformed into a modern IT and BPO hub and made its mark on the world map by having the highest concentration of IT companies in Hyderabad. The former CM of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, Chandrababu Naidu, an ambitious visionary, caught on to the wave that was changing the world, and attracted the world's best software companies to set up base in Madhapur village. According to locals, Madhapur was earlier known as Madhava Puram. Madhava is the other name of Lord Krishna and Puram means village. In earlier days, villagers used to worship Lord Krishna and subsequently the name Madahava Puram caught on. Now, it has become Madhapur.

Juliet Maria Pillay, a former executive of HSBC Bank at Madhapur, said, “Once the city was capital of the great Nizams. Today it is acquiring the status of the 'Cyber Capital' of India. Hitec City can be compared to other major metropolices like Delhi and Mumbai because of its IT hub and multi-cuisine restaurants.”

Activity at Hitec City goes on round the clock, even when Hyderabad sleeps. Cabs zoom across for picking up and dropping off employees. The roadside bandiwalas (tiffin and meals centres) are the lifeline for people who work there. APSRTC, the state-owned bus service, connects Madhapur with other parts of the city. Taxis and autos shuttle between the station and the city. The Hyderabad Metro Rail (HMR), which is under construction, would make transportation easier and a lot better.