Whitefield: A forgotten suburb

Mar 06, 2013

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Bengaluru: That the city's pace of growth has quickened in recent years is a given. But it is most obvious in areas like Whitefield. Once a sleepy Eurasian settlement on the outskirts of Bengaluru, it is today a major IT hub and a self-sustaining suburb. The cluster of villages that you once saw here, have given way to tall buildings and malls , turning Whitefiled into a preferred work-live-play destination of techies.
Home to IT giants , large apartment complexes, star hotels, resorts and spas, Whitefield has all the makings of a self- sustaining township. In fact, being self- sustaining was a huge part of the plan when DES White first thought of establishing a farming village for Anglo- Indians here. For years later it remained a quiet and sleepy suburb with beautiful farm houses, the Sai Baba's ashram and a quaint little railway station.
Then came the IT boom and with it the ITPL (now ITPB) in 1992. When the ITPL opened in 1998 it was the first IT park in India and it triggered the transformation of Whitefield into the IT hub that it has become today. The change is staggering as the area now has the highest concentration of Indian and multinational companies, both IT and non-IT. The ITPL, EPIP Zone, several private Technology Parks and industrial areas provide employment to more than three lakh people.
The unique positioning of Whitefield as a work-live-play destination has played a big role in attracting a large number of industries to it and the last decade has seen people from the heart of Bengaluru and across the country making it their place of work and home, occupying its many apartment complexes, independent houses and gated communities.
With many of these offering world class facilities, they have takers from among entrepreneurs, NRIs and foreigners , who feel at home in the environment they create, especially as they don't need to go anywhere else for their shopping, entertainment or the education of their children as its all there in this eastern suburb of Bengaluru.

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