KTR: Hyderabad to dethrone Bengaluru as IT capital

Despite Hyderabad trailing Bengaluru by a wide margin in IT exports, the Telangana government said it was aiming to outdo the Garden City and emerge as the information technology capital of the country in a few years.

"We want Hyderabad to be the No. 1 in terms of information technology, ahead of Bengaluru, in the next few years," Telangana IT minister KT Rama Rao told reporters in Mumbai. He said at present Hyderabad, which has been in a battle for IT supremacy with Bengaluru for nearly two decades, accounts for only 13% of the country's IT exports against 31% from the Garden City.

Rao said that the state, through its proactive policies, aims to double IT exports from the present $11 billion in the next five years. He also said 15,000 jobs were added to Hyderabad's IT workforce of 3.20 lakh over the last 12 months, and claimed that this was the fastest anywhere in the country.

When it comes to revenue growth of IT firms, Hyderabad reported a 16% growth, which is 3 percentage points more than the national average of 13%, he said. Even though Bengaluru hogged the headlines following the success of Isro's Mars Mission, Rao said 30% of the components in the project were made by Hyderabad firms.

It can be noted that Bengaluru boasts of names like Infosys and Wipro, while Hyderabad has Satyam and Sify. The scandal at Satyam led to Bengaluru to emerge as undisputed leader. Bengaluru also lapped up startups, hosting the likes of Flipkart and RedBus.

Rao today said his government will soon be launching the country's largest technology incubator for startups and has already signed up with reputed law schools and technology institutes in the city. He also noted that recently the city successfully roped in Amazon, Uber and Tata-Boeing.