The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : City second in quality of living

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Saturday, Mar 22, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

City second in quality of living

A. Saye Sekhar

HYDERABAD: We get to see many high-rise structures all along the roads and even in the lanes of the city, thanks to the absence of the concept of downtowns in India. If a new area becomes populous and turns active, it hardly takes any time for several commercial establishments from small-time ‘desi’ departmental stores to multi-storeyed malls to find their place there.

Yet, in all the 400-plus years of the city’s growth, the fact that commercial activity has been growing by leaps and bounds is just one side of the coin. The bigger picture is unveiled only after the advent of information technology (IT) in the city, especially in the late `90s and early 2000. The current Grade ‘A’ office space in the city is about 11.7 million sq. ft., according to a report ‘Andhra Pradesh: the chosen destination for IT’ brought out by Jones Lang LaSalle Meghraj. The major commercial development in the city, HITEC-City area and Gachibowli, formed 83 per cent of the present office space, which included IT parks and standalone projects. In fact, the development began with conventional businesses like banking, insurance, tourism, etc. By the fourth quarter of the current financial year, 67 per cent of the total current stock in the city is occupied by IT space, leaving all others with just 33 per cent. In 1999, IT and non-IT commercial buildings occupied a space of about 5 lakh sq. ft each. The report suggested that the city was still rated as very affordable in terms of rental value growth trend. In fact, National Association of Software and Service Companies ranked Hyderabad as the second best in terms of cost of living as well as quality of life. The city was better than the four metros and Bangalore in commercial rental value. The city added 1.02 lakh IT jobs in the last three years.

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Andhra Pradesh