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So you are creating a problem and then solving it .

Why not put up industries in the places that are still not cultivated in the first place. Why displace farmers ?, why would you imbalance the ecology/nature ?

We are digressing, but no farmer (with land in the outskirts of a big city) is interested in farming.

Its one thing to be idealistic but at the end of the day a growing city needs land for its residents/industries and farmers like to enjoy life with the crores that their land is worth. IMO there is plenty of arable land in India that is still not properly developed.

Black12rr, you cannot put up a software company in the middle of nowhere and do farming in downtown Bangalore.

Some of your points are well taken, provided the govt helps the farmer get to be more efficient and harness modern technology to help him improve productivity. Instead of shouting about subsidized power etc and allowing the chaotic fragmented holdings like they are doing now, they should actively form properly run co-operatives to enhance efficiencies. They can easily take the example of AMUL - it is a superb exercise in harnessing the power of the people and guaranteeing them a safe, fair return for their hard work and at the same time achieving standardization, meeting public demand for milk products and keeping prices reasonably fair. When we have such a shining example with us why cant we follow it/ adapt it to other categories as well? the only answer is the sheer lack of political and bureaucratic will, nothing else.

Now just compare and contrast between farming methods in North India, particularly the Punjab, and say TN or AP or K'taka. The difference is as between chalk and cheese with the dice being heavily loaded in favour of Punjab - they have harnessed modern technology and techniques very well indeed, whereas the chaps down here have simply not done so.

Yes I agree that one shouldnt hamper a city's growth etc. But a better solution for this is to create satellite towns/ cities OR develop the towns and villages already existing in the hinterland.

I however, do NOT agree, that indiscriminate industrialization at the cost of indigenous agricultural production and thence, IMPORT are the only smart solutions a k a the west.

Our early post independence leaders like Mr C Subramaniam and others pioneered the green revolution here, largely with a view to making ourselves self sufficient in terms of agriculture to feed our huge population. (After the horrible Bengal famine of that era, our people realized we had better build our own efficiencies in production and supply chain - though even now we have a long way to go.) We should hold on to that advantage and improve upon it rather than resort to imports. This will help keep prices more in control than otherwise.

Just as a comparison, have you seen the prices of eggs in our neighbouring country Sri lanka which survives on pretty much 100% imports? Where you and I pay perhaps Rs 3 for an egg here, they pay at the moment around Rs 17- as of 3rd Jan 2011!! Even taking into account that their rupee is only worth say half of our rupee - the price per egg in INR comes to Rs 8.50/- Can you imagine a situation like that happening here in India? Frightening, to say the least as I am sure you will agree!

We are moving away from Infosys here... let's get back on track.

Currently, whenever a company like Infosys buys land in rural areas, the land price in the surrounding areas shoot up so high, everybody wants to just sell their land and enjoy the money. This is one ripple effect nobody talks about.

Why can't Infosys try their had at agriculture? No, I am serious. They have huge land holdings, they have the money to buy all those huge farming equipments that can completely mechanize the farming activity. And they don't have to worry about getting cheated by middlemen. Even if they sell at twice their cost, the food grain will cost half as much as the prevailing rates. That is the beauty of economy of scale. In fact, to keep inline of their haloed image, they can stick to organic farming. That is even more profitable as organic food costs more and yuppies everywhere will stand in long queues to Infosys brand organic food.

Damn, can you imagine the PR their can generate out of this initiative? They'll practically get the right to draw a halo around NRN's head in every future picture. Suddenly, nobody will mind Infosys buying more and more land. And they know how to give funky titles. If they could call their trainers as evangelist (hallelujah on that), they'll can come up with some incredible title for the farmers too. It can make even software engineers take up farming in Infosys ranks. All those bored Infosys software engineers might make a beeline to get transferred to Infosys eFarming division.

Think of the ripple effect. Private agriculture colleges will sprout (no pun here) up everywhere. Every engineering colleges will create an agriculture engineering department.

The agriculture land prices will shoot up everywhere, poor farmers can sell it for high prices and retire in peace. Or they can exchange it for Infosys stock, the dividend itself can sustain them for ever. Farmers can even become employees of Infosys and earn high salaries. After all, their domain knowledge will be lot higher than the engineers. Anyway, the possibilities are endless.

lol Samurai, that's the most innovative and diversified growth i would guess.

Its sabre-rattling and nothing more. Infy may expand their operations outside Bangalore, but I dont foresee them throwing away their "star" status accorded in Bangalore, in the name of office space. If they really wanted to move out of Bangalore, they would have done so long back to Mysore.

Shades of "IN-Farmville"???
LOL!!!lol:

1. Think that is not really true. Have you heard of Global investors meet - karnataka held in June 2010 in Bangalore ? A total of 413 new investment proposals, totaling to 4,73,382 Crores was signed during that meet. details here Sector Wise MoU signed during Global Investors Meet 2010, Bangalore | GIM | MoU - Karnataka.com

Assuming even only 50% gets converted into actual projects , that is a sizeable new investment in karnataka..( software is only 16,000 crores or just 3% out of this ) so investment is certainly coming in lot of other sectors.

Also see this .. karnataka ranks 3rd in FDI inflows in India after Maharashtra & Gujarat.."The State, which attracted US$2,026.4 million worth of FDI in 2008-09, emerged as third largest state with 7.42 per cent share in India’s total FDI of US$27,309 million.

Incidentally, the country, as a whole, recorded 11 per cent growth during fiscal 2009 as against US$24,580 million in fiscal year 2008. In fact, the State, which stood at fourth position last year, has gone notch up this fiscal, indicative of investor’s implicit faith in Karnataka and brand Bangalore" Karnataka stands 3rd for FDI inflows in India after Maharashtra ,Gujarat

so it is not all gloom & doom

2. Infosys has around 30,000 employees in bangalore..a large percentage trainees. . Even in you assume 20% of them or 6000 , will buy a flat every year ( which is too far fetched ). , the impact will be insignificant on the market as a whole IMO

Yes of course I do. We need to find a good balance between farming and industrialization. Thankfully we have a humongous population so I dont think there will be a shortage of people available to do agriculture. As the country becomes richer, we will have more financial resources to modernize farming.

We lost 50 years by chanting 'Jai Jawan Jai Kisan' and got nowhere. As recently as last year that silly woman (whats her name?) repeated history and drove Tata Nano project out of West Bengal. Thanks to PVNR and Dr.Manmohan Singh we are now a fast developing country spoken in the same breath as China, Brazil and Russia. Let us not kill the industries that brought us here.

@Balan, others: Unlike the Mirror article Infosys, I think views itself as a global company with a large India base. If it suits its financial calculations, it will shift base to Shanghai in China, why Pune! Its DNA is like that. I believe lots of its senior managers will still believe in NRN's mantra - under promise, deliver beyond expecations! Well, at least I think so, having spent many years in this company (not anymore). Having said that, there others who look below the sheen and even claim - Infosys is the largest real estate company around, that happens to be in software. While I disagree with this view - however - it is a people business. Wipro too has a large presence and equally large workforce. But it operates out of leased campuses unlike Infosys, which for some reason unknown to me, likes to own its buildings. So in that sense, Infosys Pune campus might outstrip its Bangalore campus. But that doesnt mean its management has to sit where its footprint is biggest. Instead, I think Infosys would like to keep its management where its customers are. There was a time when some of its Founder Directors even moved to US to be closer to customers. Its AGM still happens in Bangalore. Bangalore still remains the number one reference to IT development and outsourcing, be it revenue numbers or as an english expression. For all I care, this story in mirror might be a convoluted message to the local government to speed up its clearances, or else... The present government is quite preoccupied with other existential questions and might just call the bluff!
Disclaimer - These are my personal views and not of Infosys or its representatives!

Good one Samurai! But I am sure you say in jest! Infosys is an ultra conservative company that it will ever touch something as unpredictable as agriculture! Imagine its analyst meets and its legendary performance that delivered quarter on quarter, for 30+ quarters to meet or exceed its own projections. It has rendered itself as the darling of equity markets due to this uncompromising performance. Inside the company it has an insane belief in processes and all sorts of models that will keep that machine chugging. Agricultural output is in the hands of Weather Gods and even if they kept their date, there is the sleazy 7 layers of middlemen that suck out the poor farmers earnings. In fact, agriculture is in such a sad state with so many debt trapped farmers committing suicides. Is mechanization or modern drip irrigation stuff like innovative Israeli farming the answer? Is it poor crop rotation or poor quality of seeds? That is an all together separate discussion, seriously!

But then I too read somewhere where someone said the best way out of the present global economic crisis is to have a second green revolution! So, to your point, if indeed, Infosys considered your suggestion and adopted to farming, its management will likely end up with incurable ulcers for its sheer lack of predictability!

Besides, corporate farming in not completely legal in India ;)

Deve Gowda had raised his voice against Infosys asking them why cant they work like wipro which does not go after having its own land and buildings. No one cared for Gowda !!

Govt is not authorizing the conversion of land at Sarjapur. With a lot of MNCs hiring aggressively in Bengaluru, services companies are facing a lot of competition in getting good talent. Hope Bengaluru converts to more of product based and gives way to services based organisations.

thanks for the insights. I didnt know the figures involved and do appreciate they are significant.
However, we in K'taka still pale into insignificance in comparison to Guj.
Those chaps however bad and mad, are singularly focussed on progress whereas our creatures here seem to be focussed only on their own pockets. And K'taka dependency on IT/ IT related work is much much higher. What we need is more balance by way of manufacturing, engineering and other industries as well as IT.


agreed completely. All this populist slogan shouting gets no one anywhere at all.

about time we faced reality or got left behind.
but the issue of fragmented land holding is one of the real banes of life here.

I, for one, am among the happier ones to hear that Infy won't be expanding in Bangalore anymore. I live near Sarjapur, and the proposed Infy campus is just about 2 km further from my house. I am glad that I won't see too much traffic or scarcity of water in that area.

Sadly, we will also not see 4-laning of the road in near future.
Also, many builders used "Proposed Infosys Campus (to be operational from March 2011)" phrase to promote their properties at escalated rates around our area. I wonder what's going to happen to all those people who bought plots/apartments there!