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This is a statutory requirement, legislated in 2017. It is not Bangalore-specific.

I have a different take on living in Bangalore as I moved very recently back to Mumbai after working close to 4 years in Bangalore.


I find a lot of things about Bangalore that make me like the city more than my current base (but family commitments outweigh them all :D ):

Weather - I see that you are from Chennai or at least based there right now, from your profile description. Trust me, you will find the weather to be a boon compared to Chennai. Weather here in Mumbai is not very different from Chennai's and I'm complaining about it all the time to whoever lends an ear.

Whitefield - Okay, I worked in Whitefield, which Bangaloreans do not consider Bangalore, but hey, the the traffic scene wasn't as bad as the rest of the city. I stayed 7 KM away from office and it took me about 20 mins in the morning and about 10-15 at night (it used to be pretty late)

Non standard work timing - If your work timing are anything like mine, you'll not be facing very many traffic woes. I worked 1-10 pm or rather 1 pm to 'when the work gets done'

Metro expansion - with the expansion of metro, it will be a breeze traveling between major city centres within a couple of years

Did I mention weather? Oh it's just awesome

Short Road trips - the best thing about Bangalore is the abundance of places you can visit over the weekend. You can literally go to a new place all 52 weekends of the year

Brilliant restaurants and pubs - I think the culinary scene is second to none when it comes to variety in cuisine (north Indians are gonna pounce on me right now)

Close to Chennai - It's just a 6 hour drive to Chennai.

Sorry, did I mention the weather? What's not to love?

But yeah, this is just one man's opinion.

All the very best for your interviews. And please do consider moving to Bangalore, I'm sure you'll not be disappointed.

I had straightaway jinxed my chances by mentioning my doubts about Bangalore to the latest recruiter who'd called. Not surprisingly, I received a mail that the position has been filled. In a crazily competitive country like ours, I had no business even mentioning a doubt about the location.

I'll zip my mouth shut about Bangalore when I get the next call.

Here's the worst of what i'd done earlier this year though; it was round 3 of 4 scheduled interviews, with the leader of a boutique consulting firm. Everything had gone well so far. They were warming up to me, I could tell from what I could see over the Skype video. He had made it clear that he wanted to set up a Consulting practise right under his nose in Bangalore. He asked me to describe how I would advise an American insurer to set up an offshore delivery center. After mentioning few other things, I had let this sentence slip despite myself - "the choice of city has to be logical. Bangalore, for instance, is a poor choice because of its lack of intra-city transportation infrastructure..." the smiles disappeared and the interview ended very abruptly. I could feel a cold slap across my face. The HR later told me that I shouldn't have lied to them about my availability for the position in Bangalore.

I have no business to be acting this stupidly. But thankfully, all that's in the rearview mirror now. I'm happy to have had this course-correction on this forum. I'm happy to hear different perspectives and to open my mind to suggestions.

Ah it's not stupidity man, it's just that recruiters are not used to hearing honesty. 98 out of every 100 people they interview will outright lie to their faces (or rather, their voices over the phone). So when they come across that rare individual who voices a genuine, honest concern about something that does affect work-life like the traffic in Bangalore undeniably does, they don't know how to react.

Now coming to working in Bangalore, I was born here and have spent most of my working life here. While it's certainly nothing like the city it used to be (there's both good and bad aspects to that), I'd still prefer living here and working here rather than any other Indian CITY. I hope to leave for good in 10 years when I turn 50, but not to another Indian city, to a small town. But as cities go, Bangalore is certainly no worse and considerably better than several of our cities.

This is something all residents take for granted. But every time I return after a week in Hyderabad, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, or Pune, I am instantly reminded at the airport itself why this city is still tops when it comes to weather! Yes, still, even in spite of the degradation caused by the vehicles and 'heat island' effect.

Oh man yes! I worked in Hyderabad for a while and before moving there, I sat with a map and drew a circle with a 200km radius around Hyderabad for possible places to visit on a weekend. The results were dismal. And my one year in Hyderabad proved that! (not dissing Hyd...well, maybe a little ;)) The same circle around Bangalore...I think only Delhi has us beat in that aspect.

I think there are quite a few factors to keep in mind before relocating to Bangalore (or any other big city in India for that matter). How these ultimately influence your decision is up to you but nonetheless, they should be taken into consideration as one's life isnt doesnt only revolve around his / her job.
- How old are you? Are you in your 20s where a good job offer is worth moving from one city to another and also could be your big career break? Also its likely that you would not own real estate holding you down in another city. Alternatively, in your current city, is it likely that you will get a similar break somewhere down the line? If you are in your 30s, is it really worth it when you consider uprooting yourself and starting anew with the additional costs associated?
- Are you married? Is your spouse a home maker or does she work? If she is planning on working? If yes, where in Bangalore would she probably find places to work in? Travel is Bangalore is not something to be scoffed at. I used to spend 2.5 hours on an average commuting to work and my wife would travel 1.25 hours as well. The worst Ive spent was 4 hours for commuting the exact same route.
- Do you have kids? What about their schooling? This merits a whole thread in itself.
- Most importantly : How long do you see yourself staying in Bangalore? 5 years? 10 years? 25 years? Is it a transactional stop in the road of your life or is it going to be your home base for quite some time?


The fact is Bangalore has changed a lot in the last few years. Home rentals have been rising quite a bit. Movies are expensive (Jungle Book tickets were going for Rs 1000 each!). Eating out does pinch the wallet more and more. Commuting is frustrating because people blatantly disregard traffic rules and it is often dangerous. Road rage is something you have to be wary of, cabbies often lose their cool and get into fights (not that its only cabbies engaging in fisticuffs). The oft praised weather is nothing like it used to be in the past, summers can be unbearably hot and we had to buy a room cooler in 2017 to help manage the heat. Heavy rains result in a lot of water logging because lakes and water bodies have steadily been swallowed up for construction. It wasnt that long ago that you needed a sweater in the winters but now it isnt the case. The civic administration is years (decades?) behind in their attempts to provide the right infrastructure that the city so desperately requires. And I dont see things improving in the near future.


That said, Bangalore is a wonderful land of opportunity. There are so many start ups and promising small to mid size companies that can be the next big thing. The talent pool is there and grows day by day. Hobbies and interest groups bring you in contact with like minded folks and you can make wonderful friends. If you enjoy weekend travelling, Bangalore is a perfect base to explore south India.


But given that I didnt see things changing for the better in the near future, after 10 years in Bangalore, I moved to a smaller city in 2018.

A lot of comments about the glorious weather in Bangalore. But I'd like to add a word of warning. There is a lot of particulate matter in the air, especially vegetative. Bangalore has a very high incidence of respiratory diseases like asthma and allergies. It has probably reduced now because of the pollution. 10-15 years back, Bangalore was leading along with Coimbatore.

I suffer from chronic dust and pollen allergies and Bangalore terribly exacerbates both, and the effects are not limited to respiratory issues alone. In my case it's my eyes that cause me a lot of discomfort, being prone to infections due to chronic inflammation. I take necessary precautions and the occasional anti-allergic and it hasn't gotten to a crippling level (yet), but I may ultimately have to move out for health reasons.

Having some experience in recruitment, Bangalore is hot in terms of jobs offers.

Use Google maps to figure out the time you are going to spend on traffic. The distance between where you live and how long it takes are not directly proportional.

I spend 2 hours on a good day and 3 on a bad day, travels around 50-60 kms in the process. I use Google maps every day, and so changes my route as well. If I go to an office just 12 KMS away, it will take me roughly the same Amount of time.

Location matters, I don't want to live close to work just for my convenience and then my family will have to give up things important to them.

Moved from Chennai to Bangalore in 2013 March. Haven't had to regret that decision yet - even though I've clocked close to 2 lakh kms in all three of my vehicles ever since the migration five years ago.

Every city has its own problem. You just learn to live around it.

Ooo la la. How did I miss this thread I am not sure? But now that I have come across it and read all the posts, I must add my tiny 2 cents.

Disclaimer: The opinions, views and comments of mine are not intended to hurt the sentiments of any individual.

My story begins in 2009, when after completing my post-graduation, I ended up joining a firm in Bangalore. Though, I had stayed away from home (aka parents) during my college, it was the first time the distance was so significant. So, like every 'Delhite', I decided that it'll take just 6 months before I found another job somewhere in NCR and moved back home. Some good and some very good things happened in my career and before I knew it, I had spent 5 years in the same organization. A few events made me start looking for opportunities in other organizations and quite soon I realized, most of them were in Bangalore, and almost always, the opportunity in Bangalore was better paying and had a better job description compared to the ones in NCR. So, I switched to another company in Bangalore. And this is when things started to get interesting.

Till now, I had lived in Whitefield and worked in ITPL. Additionally, I had always followed 1pm to 10pm timings and traffic was the least of my problems. But this new job was in the dreaded ORR stretch and followed the usual 8am to 5pm timing. So, I thought I will shift this side, closer to the new office. And then destiny took its turn and I got married. Wife's office - you guessed it, was in Whitefield. Now, I had to keep put in Whitefield and come to ORR every day. Rents in even 'decent' societies were eye watering expensive and soon, life started showing a different flavor to me. My wife too developed chronic cough which became severe every winter, due to pollen content in the air. After a long discussion, we have recently decided to leave Bangalore for good and have started looking for opportunities in other cities, not limited to NCR. As soon as I began my search, I again realized, Bangalore as the best opportunities - period. More so in my field of work. Anyhow, we are now prepared to let go of the fat paycheck and getting a good hike when I switch is no longer a criterion for me. The search is on.

With my experience so far, I have concluded that there exists a vicious circle.

Most IT companies have huge offices in Bangalore > this means more people with a particular skillset living in Bangalore > people add to traffic > New companies setting up offices are aware of the skill pool availability in Bangalore > These companies expand existing offices or new companies establish new offices in Bangalore > More offices attract more people into Bangalore > Traffic goes up !

A different face of Bangalore is seen during long weekends, when most of this working crowd heads out of town. The roads are empty, the gardens welcoming and the malls lay bare.

Now coming to your post. I cannot give you a definite answer, but let me try to list down some PROS and CONS.

Pros:
- Weather. Though the summers are getting hot and Bangalore isn't receiving its share of rains like earlier, it is still much much better than other major cities.
- Proximity to beaches and hills. For people who need to take a weekend break, the options are limitless.
- Proximity to wildlife. This one is specially for people like me who are bitten by the bug of jungle safaris.
- Job opportunities. Start-ups are here. Established IT services are here. Product companies are here. You name it, Bangalore has it.
- Availability of world cuisine and a wide variety of pubs/lounges spread across the city.
- Good schools. Schools available for every budget range.
- Pre-dominantly warm locals.

Cons:
- Traffic. Yes, it is bad. It also depends on where you stay and where you work. I will elaborate it later.
- Non-existent infrastructure. Bad roads, hopeless water supply to homes/societies, unplanned development.
- Air quality. NCR is bad, due to pollution, but Bangalore is bad due to pollution + pollen. I know many people who have developed asthma due to their stay in Bangalore.
- Cost of living. Yes, you get better paying jobs, but living here is expensive. I really feel the difference when I travel to cities like Jaipur, Lucknow, Indore. Not much aware of Chennai, but Delhi and Mumbai seem to be at par with Bangalore.
- Bangalore seems like a Black-hole for IT professionals. You can come in when you want, but you can never leave.
- Random incidents will remind you that you are an 'outsider' because Kannada Gothilla. But I suppose this is a problem in every area of India, we are not inclusive enough.

Now, coming to traffic. There are a few areas which are severely impacted. The Marathahalli - Iblur junction stretch of ORR is worst. Crossing Silkboard is end of life mission. Then there is Manyata tech park and the KR Puram junction to Bagmane tech park. If you are going to work in either of these areas, be prepared to be stuck in traffic OR pay through your nose for the insanely high rents. However, if you get to work in relatively better places like Electronic City, or ITPL - vicinity or Global tech village, you can and probably will have better chances of battling traffic. Additionally, a lot of start-ups work from the posher locations of Koramangla or Indiranagar, where you can find good stay options (expensive again) quite close. So, you can even walk to office.
If you are lucky and you get to work and stay near Jayanagar, JP nagar or Banashankari, you should certainly move to Bangalore. These are posh areas, old Bangalore, when it was planned. Nice residential layouts, good road network and lots of greenery.

In the end, please ensure you thoroughly check the work location, the flexibility in work timings, the residential areas in that vicinity, the schools in reach and then decide if you should take this giant leap of faith.

Indeed.

Thankfully (and I cannot be thankful enough for this) I am in no way connected to the tech sector. I am a corporate lawyer by profession, and almost all law firms are situated in the MG Road, Lavelle Road, Residency Road areas. Therefore, I don't even have to look in the direction of Silk Board, ORR, Whitefield, etc etc- those dreaded areas of Bangalore, hopefully forever. Yes, central Bangalore has its share of traffic no doubt, but it is pretty much incomparable to the absolute mess that I have encountered the couple of times that I have had to commute on work to ORR.

Secondly, I have been staying in South Bangalore (JP Nagar) for years now, and even though my commute is 12 kms to office, it is through relatively good roads and better regulated traffic areas. I also plan my commute to ensure that I don't get caught in peak hour traffic either way- this mostly provides a considerable cut in commuting time. As residential areas, older parts of south Bangalore (Jayanagar, JP Nagar, Banashankari, BTM and nearby areas) is so much superior to Bellandur, Whitefield and the likes that I have no inclination of moving away from my current residential location.

Moral: If one can plan his place of stay and commuting times, and has the flexibility to do so, a lot of the traffic and commuting woes can be minimized. In spite of all the recent degradation in the city's climate, Bangalore still remains one of the best weather-wise amongst the major cities in India.

Bad luck, I can imagine how bad it gets. As an aside, Bangalore has always been bad for people with allergies. Even before the vehicular and construction dust and pollution boom, it was the numerous empty plots overgrown with parthenium that used to make things difficult for my childhood buddies with allergies. I guess the dry weather is also a big factor.

Truly lucky, those areas are slowly but surely becoming the good, pedestrian-friendly and street-culture-focused areas of town. Being a part of the 'cantonment' and former British residential areas, they were anyway always some of the greenest parts of the city. And certainly much better connected by public transport than these accursed ORR, so called 'hi-tech' areas! I went to school in that part of town and until 2 years ago, had a variety of jobs in that area too. How I miss it!

Let me share my story:
I moved to Bangalore in 2004 after working for couple of years in MP. I am from karnataka and bangalore is almost the sole option for jobs for us. I stayed with friends in BTM and traveled to Domlur via IRR using my bike. I remember it used to take flat 20 mins for me! The weather those days was truly amazing as compared to today. But compared to northern part of karnataka the current weather is still great. When i bought an flat on hesarghatta road, i travelled for a year or so to domlur in my bike/car and would spend a good hour commuting thru the CBD. This was the time when the tumkur road flyover was being constructed so we saw worst of the traffic at yeshwantpur.



Then i changed my job, thanks to the 2008-09 meltdown in the industry and my new job was in Electronic City. Used to take company bus at 6:40 AM in the morning and reach office by 8:15 AM. Evening the bus used to start sharp at 6 PM and depending on the traffic some times i reached home at 8 and some times at 9 PM! my wife too used to work in the same company and we both suffered the traffic. We got so fed up of the traffic that we ditched the company bus and started driving to office via NICE road.


with in a year i got a better job opportunity with office in langford town and few month later wife got job in koramangala. We decided to reduce our travel time by shifting to a rented place. We opted to Banashankari where we got a 3 BHK Duplex for around 15K. this was 6 years back. we still pay less than 20K as rent for the same place.



My office is now near Jayadeva hospital and take 20 mins to reach office and wife still works in koramangala. She complains about the time it takes her now to commute. earlier it was 30 mins now it can go up to 1:30 hrs some days. But because of the old bangalore charm with better roads, better air and good water supply and decent options near by, we don't plan to shift anywhere soon.



So its very important to decide on where your work location is and where you would like to stay. always weigh the offer with all that you will gain and the time you will lose due to traffic.

I live in Bangalore since 2010 (and earlier in 2004-05 as well) and I feel I should share some of my experiences as well :-

1) DAILY COMMUTE - Yes it is getting worse by the day. I stay at CV Raman Nagar which is like the heart of Bangalore these days considering Manyata 11kms North, ITPL East 9kms, Ecospace South 9kms, Bagmane 2kms West, EGL 6kms South and so on. My wife works in Manyata and I work in Koramangala, so this location being our apt one for many years now. However I have seen this dangerous traffic trend lately, where my 11kms commute in bike increased from 20 mins to 45 mins and some days upto 1hr, not to mention that I have stopped using car for obvious reasons. Recently I had a heat stroke when I was struck in traffic in Bike for 1.5 hrs on this route. In a nutshell, there is an increase of 5-8 mins atleast every year. COMMUTE IS A PROBLEM, unless of course you have the option of Metro or stay close to your work place. In vehicle terms, my CBR250 gets me 22-24kmpl mileage and my xuv500 gets 8-9kmpl in Bangalore traffic and my friend in Gurgaon gets 11-12kmpl mileage with his xuv500, self explanatory!

2) HOLIDAY COMMUTE - This is something which usually people miss to explain. Come Diwali, Onam, Dussehra, Christmas or any such big occasions, EXIT and end of vacation ENTRY to/from Bangalore is a nightmare, big big nightmare. I have an instance where during Onam 2017, my friend was stuck at Attibele toll gate (first toll gate after Bangalore city, 14kms from electronics city) for 3 HOURS while enroute to Kerala. Two weeks back on my return from Calicut post Dussehra, had an ENTRY jam to Bangalore city (at Kanakpura NICE junction) as big as 2 hrs where ideally it should have taken 1hr to reach home from there, but thanks to google I took alternate roads. Too many people travelling together is the cause, nothing can be done and painful to see that Tollgates are a BIG failure, even Fastag and Toll operators don't have minimum sense to open gates to traffic to avoid such 2-3 kms queues.

3) AIR QUALITY - I read somewhere like 2500 vehicles enter Bangalore roads every day, so the air quality is an issue especially with cloud cover or winter time. My kids have cold-cough-allergies most of the time. Personally, I was holding good since 2010 till say 6 months back with a strong immunity but now even I am affected with regular allergies. I feel things are getting worse and worse. So DO NOT come to Bangalore due to the weather! I dont see it too far before people in Bangalore start wearing masks, and then carry oxygen cylinders.

4) PERSONAL LIFE - I don't know if its true for everyone or elsewhere, but once in Bangalore you dont have time for anything else (read as meeting friends or relatives). Even some of my friends who have moved in from Pune have mentioned the same. Everyone so so busy!

However, having said all these, I still love Bangalore though and have good memories, but even if I can live with commute issues, I dont really think I can with the Health issues. I have already started thinking about moving out say in next 3-5 yrs. So my advice to anybody thinking of Bangalore is - consider health.

Having settled in Bangalore after working in a couple of major IT cities(Hyderabad, Pune etc) here are my 2 cents :

Traffic is indeed a pain but that's mostly for folks who already have a home here or if spouse works in a different part of the city. But for people moving in for new job I don't really understand how its that big a problem? Ideally one should look for accommodation in close proximity to office. Its not like I get a job in whitefiled and decide to live in EC? lol:

Am not sure about your case, as in if the move would lead your spouse to change job as well or kid's school getting affected. But that would be a problem for moving to any city, not just bangalore. Just find an accommodation close to office, as simple as that. You have decent apartments almost in every nook and corner of Bangalore now, more-so in areas which have the IT parks. :)

So this reason is honestly not even close to being good enough for any hiring firm and it would be considered in the same bucket of reasons which lead to straight cancellation of candidature