Industrial Scene Of The Tricity & Suburbs Like Baddi, Dera Bassi Etc
The locale enclosing the tricities-Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali has the apt amalgamation of abundant availability of trained and qualified personnel, well arranged logistics for the raw materials and haulage, adequate supply of water and power, and most importantly the complete prop ups from the government authorities and other policy makers.

The scrupulous architecture and planning of the city adds cream to the cake!!! The reasons for a great future in the field of industrial growth for the tricity of Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali is one too many. None would be surprised to see a city of the twenty first century within the boundaries of this tricity very soon; it surely is going to be a matter of time for this to happen!

It all happened in the year 1947 when, post partition of the country, the state of Punjab had lost its earlier capital city Lahore to Pakistan. An emotional loss for the state, an all out effort was launched to ensuring that the state was compensated duly. This set the process of designing and constructing the city of Chandigarh rolling and soon, the same went on the drawing boards of prominent city planners of the world Mr Albert Meyer, initially and later on took by someone else, who has been credited with churning out the city as it looks today.

Today, there are not many cities in the country, which can boast of an allround development that would match that of the city of Chandigarh.

The Growth of the City
Once the plans were approved and brought in place, it did not take much time for the city to develop into one of the most well planned and beautiful cities of the country. There are lovely gardens and parks across the city that make it one of the favourite destinations for many tourists, both Indian and foreign.

The city also became a hub centre for education with many professional and technical institutions being setup in the place over a period of the first three decades. These institutes have, over the past years, carved a name for themselves as well as for the city and today, the city has its name on the list of favorite destinations for those seeking education as well, in the country.

While deciding to form the city here, another factor that was taken into account was the general climate of the area and availability of water. With a most pleasant climate almost throughout the year, the city has become one of the favorite spots for getting settled down. Also a factor that has added value to the place is the plenty availability of water that has now become a scarce commodity in most of the major cities of the country.

With the city and the area located very near the capital city of the country, access to prominent areas of the country has been not a major problem. The airport of the place is being renovated and converted into on of the best in the region and this is only going to hasten the industrial development of the place.

The place has also been blessed with fine smooth and broad roads, another outcome of the meticulous planning that went into the setting up of city. With very good rail connectivity to the rest of the country, the in and outflow of goods will surely not have any problems, in any mass.

The city has also been blessed with another major asset for setting up of industries- the availability of uninterrupted power. Thanks to the thermal stations and a strong and reliable power grid, the administration has ensured that power, the major requirement for setting up industries, would never be a problem here.

Perhaps the most important of the factors that has encouraged widespread industrialization here is the proactive ness of the administration, a real rare blessing for any Indian city in today’s world. The e-administration and the haste in which the files move in the government offices of the area have no parallels in the country. What is remarkable is the fact that the city has been blessed with a similar positive approach from the administration all through the history of more that fifty plus years of its existence.

With trained and effective manpower available in plenty, thanks to the numerous reasons why the area is preferred for people to settle down and reside permanently, the industries have never faced a problem in getting the right people for the right job.

To add to this is the plentiful availability of technical training institutes who churn out many young competent personnel, full of energy to work for these companies!

Today’s Scene
With a solid foundation provided by the administration and with the availability of all the factors that are vital for setting up of industries, the revolution has already happened in this part of the country. Another reason of this happening at a fast pace has been the almost saturation of the south cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Thiruvananthapuram. These cities have witnessed problems like power and water crisis, road and railway congestion, accommodation and transportation problems and above all, a sense of lack of cooperation from administration over the past years.

It is in these areas that the Chandigarh administration has been able to capitalize and no wonder, the industrialization has now seen unprecedented growth rates in the recent past.

The Sudden Growth
The sudden surge in the industrialization happened in the 1990s when large number mills of poly spinning were built and commissioned in the areas of Dera Bassi & Lalru. Big players in the field such as Chatha Foods, JBCL, Punjab Meat Ltd and Wockhardt set up their factories during this time. These are prominent players in the fields of export of packaging food, bus bodybuilding and other manufacturing processes.

They have made it big in their respective fields and have also ensured growth of other companies in manufacturing in the past decade or so. Latest in the series is biotechnology parks, which are again making its presence felt from the Dera Bassi area.

In the neighboring Baddi Barotiwala belt, in the Himachal Pradesh, thanks to the many tax holidays initiated by the local government to encourage the growth of industries, great numbers of industries are cropping up in haste.

In all, there are over two hundred industries that have sprung up in the area and this number is surely on a steady rise. Most of these companies have been doing very well and are increasing their scales as well, with the passage of time. These companies include textile units, pharmaceutical companies, FMCG companies and forging units. Big players like Godrej, Pan Parag and HLL are also a part of these.

The RGC Technology Park
In the year 2001, the administration of Chandigarh took a major leap towards the industrialization of the area by the setting up of the Rajiv Gandhi Chandigarh Technology Park. The Park offers almost everything that a firm would look for before setting up of a IT based company. Under one roof, the Park has many campuses and offices, which can be suited for the varied requirements of different types and scales of operations.

Other amenities that match the international requirements like open spaces, cafeterias, communication network and a great many number of such needs are also catered for in this huge workspace. Some of the big timers of the industry who have set up solid bases here are Infosys, DFL, IBM Daksh, Dell and IDS. Infosys alone employs over five thousand people here in this setup and they are also likely to double this figure soon.

In its second phase of construction already, the administration aims much higher and is in the process of acquiring over two hundred and fifty acres in all to complete the third phase of construction of this setup. Once this is over, the entire complex is likely to offer direct employment to over twenty five thousand people, a very large number indeed!

Growth of Mohali
Mohali is also seeing a great deal of activities in the last ten years plus. Major companies that have staked their claims in the industries from here are Dell, IDS, Infosys and Quark. Wipro, which has almost twenty acres in Chandigarh, is also in the process of setting up an infrastructure of about forty acres in Mohali.TCS, another big name in software, is also setting up its activities from Mohali and this again is to happen very soon.

And Panchkula…
Panchkula is also not lagging behind in attracting entrepreneurs. The government of Haryana is investing on another big scale IT park in this region also. It would not surprise anyone if this area also develops into a major industrial region, thanks to the speed with which the neighboring areas have progressed.

What one must note in this, is the fact that the rapidness of the growth of the industries in the entire area has not been seen at any other place in the entire country. While it took years for the other big cities to find a place in the industrial map of the country and later the world, this area is showing remarkable and unprecedented rate of growth, especially in the IT sector.

Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Pune must have taken double the time to attain the growth this area has seen in the past four to five years. With the businesses of BPOs, KPOs and software designing and coding overtaking the manufacturing processes that existed from before, soon this area is going to find its place in the global map for an area with very high productivity.

Problem Areas
With such a growth in the area of industrialization, there are many areas the administration of these places should carefully deal with, lest these places cripple down the manner in which many of the other industrialized areas have, in the recent past. There is much for them to learn from the individual cities that boast of high industrialization on hand but are faced with the embarrassment of major debacles on other fronts.

The major threat is the uncontrolled influx of people coming to these areas in the search of education and more importantly, for work. While the ones who reach the area for education are not always going to settle down here permanently, the other groups almost always do that. The city was originally planned to accommodate about six lakh occupants.

Today this number has risen to over a million. In addition, there is another big number of more than three lakh people settled in Panchkula and another about four lakh plus people in the Mohali area, including Zirakpur and Dera Bassi. These towns, as always are dependant on Chandigarh for education, medical facilities and many other basic requirements.

There is surely a major problem in hand for the administration to tackle, as this large number is likely to increase further at uncontrollable rates and will pose a severe threat to the availability of the basic resources- water, land, power, housing, roads and hospitals. The rise in real estate and property prices has soared beyond the imagination of the common man in the recent years. It would not surprise anyone if the situation gets worse and goes beyond control soon.

Traffic jams were unheard of in this part of the country till a few years back. Now, they are as common as they were rare in those times. With the steep rise in population, the administration has not been able to check the number of people staying in slums. It is estimated that a whopping thirty five percent of the people of this city are now living in slums.

Final Verdict
While on one hand, one can be proud at the way in which the area of Chandigarh, Mohali, Panchkula and suburbs Baddi, Dera Bassi etc have industrialized in the recent past, we have every reason to worry and take necessary actions to prevent this from going the catastrophic way. Action, if not initiated immediately, can change the way people of the country perceive this region forever.