Calcutta to shed its poor image
By John Zubrzycki
NEW DELHI (JP): With 12 million people crowded around the banks of the River Hoogly, Calcutta has long been synonymous with urban disaster. Its infrastructure is cracking at the scams, a third of the population lives in slums and during the monsoons water-borne disease often assume epidemic proportions.
No wonder the English writer Rudyard Kipling called Calcutta the "city of darkest night". But entrepreneur and information technology specialist Bikram Dasgupta is determined to transform Calcutta's negative image by making it the site of Asia's first hi tech "intelligent city".
Dasgupta's Delhi-based company, Global Synergies Ltd, has tied up with the West Bengal Electronics Industry Development Corporation (Webel) and the high-technology design and building company, Singapore Technologies Construction, to develop a 40- acre futurist city on the outskirts of Calcutta.
The US$180 million "Infinity-Intelligence City", scheduled to commence construction early next year, will comprise twin 22- storied computer integrated office buildings and 1200 studio apartments for professionals working in high technology areas. Each apartment will have a global terminal connected to the workplace through an intricate network of fiber optic cables.
The two skyscrapers will have electronic sensory organs strategically located on each floor to monitor the movements of workers who will wear smart-cards that transmit signals to computers controlling building services such as climatization and energy management.
Other features will include integrated communication services for voice, video and data distribution through standard and dedicated communication facilities.
"The Infinity project is designed for businesses where efficiency and productivity of human brains determined the dollars earned by the corporation," says Dasgupta, whose list of achievements so far include bagging India's largest single IT export order - a $70 million contract to supply mother boards for Dell Computer Corporation.
Also last year, the Hindujas opened the first branch of their Induslnd Bank in Bombay, just 67 days after they got their license from the Reserve Bank of India. The bank was personally opened by none other than Finance Minister Manmohan Singh.
The Hindujas interests in India go well beyond buses and banks. The group has announced plans for setting up car manufacturing plants, ports and airports and has interests in power and oil refinery projects.
Their sights firmly set on the entertainment industry, Hindujas now plans to have cable networks, each with a capacity of 99 channels, in 25 Indian cities by the end of the year. Their first cable station in Bombay, known as INN Mumbai, has reportedly signed up 500 000 subscribers in its first three months of operation.
If this success is repeated across the country it will give Hindujas and its wholly-owned company, Induslnd Media and Communications, a strategic foothold in India's entertainment market, rivaling the muscle of the Rupert Murdoch-owned Star network and giving the state-owned Doordarshan a run for its money.
With India's satellite airwaves becoming increasingly overcrowded, Hindujas has outwitted its rivals by starting India's first cable channel. Although the Star subsidiary Zee TV and Business India Television (BiTV), operate cable networks, both are confined to relaying satellite stations.
By launching a terrestrial station via cable, Hindujas has also circumvented India's archaic broadcasting laws which prohibit the uplinking of programs from Indian soil. Local satellite station operators must send their programs on video cassette to neighboring countries such as Nepal and the Central Asia Republics for uplinking.
In addition to relaying its own stations, IN Network will carry Indian and foreign free-to -air and pay stations as well as a range of value added services such as cable shopping, video conferencing and electronic data transfer.
But the arrival of Hindujas has also sparked a major battle with established players for the country's cable viewership, once the domain of tens of thousands of small time operators using a single dish and having a base of a little as 100 subscribers.
BiTV has accused Hindujas of cutting its wires and breaking into its Bombay offices as well as using strong arm tactics to pressure individual cable operators to switch allegiances.
The chief executive officer of the IN Network, Ashish Chakravarty, denies the charges. "For us the consumer is the top priority. So we are tying up with local operators in a marriage that brings our company strengths together," Chakravarty says.
"Everyone wins. The operators are happy because they are getting a great deal and the consumer is happy because he is getting a great product."
The ultimate winner, however, will probably be Hindujas. With its superior technology and plans for investing up to $5 billion in India in various projects, Hindujas can virtually rewrite the rules of the game in one of the country's newest and fastest growing industries.