When last year's defending champions Sunrisers Hyderabad (SH) take on runners-up Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the inaugural encounter of IPL 2017 on Wednesday, it will be in a different backdrop, from a business viewpoint.
If you are feeling intrigued, please jog your memory: Karnataka slipped to the 13th spot in the ease of doing business ranking in 2016 from 9th in the previous year, while Telangana, a new state, jumped to the top position along with Andhra Pradesh, from 13th in 2015. The two states jointly share IT hub Hyderabad as their capital.
The rankings were developed jointly by the Indian government and the World Bank for the period July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2016. The results were published five months after SH defeated RCB in the final match of IPL 2016 last May.
Karnataka's capital Bengaluru (earlier, Bangalore) can continue to take pride that it is home to some of the most-famous names in the IT world — Infosys, Wipro — in addition to many global and other IT firms having their development centres, but Hyderabad is giving India's "Silicon Valley" a run for its money, in recent years.
While Bengaluru's sublime climate has always attracted global IT firms such as Microsoft, Google and Intel, in addition to many others like Shell and SABIC having their IT operations, Hyderabad successfully woo firms such as Salesforce.com Amazon.com Inc. and Uber Technologies in the recent past to set up offices, thanks to Telangana's pro-active IT minister Kalvakuntla Taraka Rama Rao.
The results manifest in the form of 13.2 percent growth in Telangana's IT/ITeS exports in 2015-16 to Rs 75,070 crore from Rs 66,276 crore in the previous fiscal, adding 35,611 jobs in the process to take it to 407,385, according to an update by the state's IT ministry.
The state has a long way before it catches up with Karnataka, whose IT/ITeS exports were projected to hit Rs 2,20,000 crore for 2015-16 with over 10 lakh directly employed by the sector.
Of some consolation is the fact that Bengaluru still ranks at No. 4, a notch above Hyderabad in the list of India's top 10 cities from a GDP point of view last year, according to an update by the Pincode India.
