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HUDA Maitrivanam - The Byte Bazar
Posted by Pradeep Sadanapalli | May 1, 2008 | 3,642 views
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Over 400 IT training institutes, all concentrated in the one-km radius of Maitrivanam at Ameerpet, cater to a huge population of students who come to the city to take courses in .Net, SAP, Java and the like. While it is turning out to be a huge business, it is also creating a vast pool of software professionals which is adding to the software boom. An entire economy is also thriving on this, says Padmaja Shastri.
“Iwant to work in the database area. So, I’m here for the summer to pursue a course in Oracle 9i. After this I am hoping to find a job with a multinational company,” says K Ravi, who is currently pursuing his MCA from Talasila Management and IT College in Khammam. Like Ravi, many students plan their certification programmes during summer in one of the hundreds of institutes that occupy commercial and residential apartments in Ameerpet.
Interestingly, at any point of time there are around 30,000 students pursuing courses in the institutes that range from as low as two days to three months costing again anywhere from as low as Rs 500 to Rs 10,000. Observers say that institutes in the one sq km area account for business of around Rs 250 crore to Rs 300 crore per annum.
Here is an indicative spreadsheet of the business. Of the 6,000 students undergoing training at Peers Technologies (P) Ltd, a leading software training institute in the area offering courses in .Net and other microsoft technologies, around 70 per cent come from outside Hyderabad. “Apart from Andhra Pradesh, we get students from Bangalore, Pune, Noida, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand among others in the country. We also have students from the US, UK, Australia, South Africa, Malaysia and Abu Dhabi,” explains N Rama Koteswara Rao, manager, business operations.
“One of the main reasons for this is the huge costs of IT training in big cities, not just abroad, but in India as well,” he adds. For instance, Oracle 9i course which could cost as much as Rs 18,000 in Pune is priced at Rs 2,500 at iLogic, an institute at Ameerpet that specialises in teaching database technologies, while a crash course in testing tools would hardly cost Rs 500 at Peers as against a fee of Rs 10,000 in Bangalore.
As word spread like a virus about the quick, efficient and cost effective programmes at the various IT training shops in Ameerpet, a huge chunk of US-based Indian software professionals—a majority of them in New Jersey —combines business with pleasure. Rather, studies with pleasure. The case of Boston-based systems analyst Bala Anand is illustrative. He makes a four-to-five week trip home to Hyderabad once a year. This is compulsorily clubbed with a quick certificate programme of two weeks here. “I make it a point to do a quick course at one of the institutes in Ameerpet. It helps me save time, money, and of course I get my skills upgraded,” he explains. “Though my family and friends sometimes find this irksome,” he adds. After hearing this, now, New Jersey-based Kapil Kumar is keenly planning an ‘education’ trip to Hyderabad, though he has never been to the city.
Cheap prices, of course, does not always mean old courses. In fact, Peers offers the most sought after courses in MS technologies like Share Point 2007 and Biztalk Server 2006 with project training, sometimes much before they are introduced in the market. “These institutes offer courses when only the beta version of the software is available,” says Sunil G, an industry insider.
Some institutes also have faculty who are so widely sought after that their names are advertised on billboards and pamphlets to attract potential students.
For instance, “A book priced on Core Java written by R Nageswara Rao, a faculty at ActiveNet, a leading Java training institute at Ameerpet, has sold around 1,500 copies in the last one month. Not just fresh students, but even those working in big companies like Satyam are buying it,” pointed out G Vinod Kumar, proprietor of Rajalaxmi Book House. Kumar opened a second computer book shop in the area last year, seeing the huge growth in the IT training.
How did they boot?
It all started around 1999 when some institutes like iLogic, Fusion IT that is into networking training, along with others in mainframe technologies set up shop here. After the Y2K boom this was followed by Java training centres like iNetSolve and ActiveNet who came in droves to residential colonies like Annapurna Block and Nilgiri Block of Aditya Enclave in Ameerpet. The rents were low - Rs 5,000 per month for a two bedroom flat (that was used for classrooms) - which kept cost of the training low and encouraged many to enter the field. Slowly, many independent houses in the area also converted into training institutes, making the area a big ITtraining hub. While the rents have skyrocketed to Rs 40,000 per month for a similar space now, the sheer scale and competition continues to keep the prices of courses in the area the lowest in the country attracting students from far and wide, explains an analyst tracking developments in the area for the last three years.
Maitrivanam Version 2.0
It’s a curious coincidence that the major occupants of Maitrivanam, the six-floor prominent building in the Huda Complex at Ameerpet today mainly has IT training institutes. This once housed Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) and software development companies like Infotech and Kernex Microsystems. May e it’s the disc space effect.
“The IT training institutes have mostly come in the last two-three years, after the software development companies and STPI moved to the Hi-Tec City,” says K P Sridhar, proprietor of Fantasies, a gifts shop in the building.
He has been at Maitrivanam since 1992 and seen it transform from a calm and quiet place with a lovely garden as the frontage to a place bustling with students from 6 am to 9 pm and the garden give way to a wider road.
Peers alone, which has two floors in the building, has seen its students strength double in the last three years. There are about 10 training institutes in the building, including a spoken English language teaching centre. The last is an interesting addition since many techies aspire to ultimately head to the land of the greenbacks.
While the growing student population is keeping Sridhar’s cash box ringing -with 25-30 per cent growth every year - he still misses the old days.
THE ANDHRA CONNECTION
Ameerpet, including its surroundings, is also known as mini Andhra because of its huge migrant population that has come from coastal Andhra in a big way since the 80s and has created a social and economic ecosystem that is self-propelling. The fact that education is prized relatively more in Andhra compared to other regions in the state has had its impact on the software boom and the rise of the IT training institutes in the area. So much so that one fed on the other. Typically, what has been happening over the years was that as soon someone graduated in any of the towns of coastal Andhra, the next thing he would do was to hop onto a bus to Hyderabad. Then he would disembark around Ameerpet, owing to familiar surroundings, including availability of Andhra food - a key driver. Pursuing a software course in one of the numerous institutes was the next thing do on the path to a decent employment. Over the years, a wonder referral system also came into place where beneficiaries would tell their relatives and friends adding to the comfort level of the newcomers. “I came to Hyderabad after studying in Vijayawada. Now I’m doing a software course in one of the institutes. I have never been outside my hometown for long. But being in Ameerpet I don’t feel homesick because this place is a lot like my hometown,” avers Murali Krishna, a student. Moreover, it’s the classic way a market emerges with one core business that drives everything else - IT training institutes in this case.
Business Begets More Business
“Rendu chapati, oka rava dosa, oka lemon rice (two chapatis and one each of rava dosa and lemon rice)….”, shouts R Subbarayudu, cashier of Sri Satya Tiffins & Catering at Maitrivanam, for the benefit of the kitchen staff.
Over 80 per cent of the 700-800 people who eat at the tiffin centre are students of the IT training institutes in the vicinity. “They are the main ‘aadharam’ (support) for our business in the area”, he adds. The same is the case with nearly 50-100 eateries dotting the IT training hub and even the hundreds of hostels and bachelor (singles) accommodations in the area. In the nearby Nageshwara Plaza, a men’s garment shop selling jeans to formal shirts, which was originally set up on a temporary basis is now a permanent joint thanks to the huge business from the students. “Over 50 per cent of the Rs 20,000 per day average business that the shop does comes from students, especially the outstation ones”, the shop staff reveal.
SOURCES:
Times Of India
Topics: Education, Business News |
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