Hyderabad International Airport Is World No.1 In Service Quality!

Source: Business Standard, Dt: 7.3.2017

Unless you’re one of the few people who’re afraid of flying and row your own raft from place to place, your first impression of a new country must be its airport. You notice the building, its architecture, the amenities and the service. Basically, your first impression of a country comes from its airport. So having an impressive airport is paramount.

In India, we adore our metropolitan city airports in Mumbai and Delhi. However, Hyderabad isn’t the first city to come to mind for having an impressive airport.

Well, most recently, Hyderabad’s Rajiv Gandhi International Airport bagged the award for best airport service quality in the world. 

The airport was selected based on a survey of 5-15 million travellers.

“WHILE THE RECOGNITION HAS DEFINITELY MADE ALL OF US PROUD, BUT WE HAVE STILL MILES TO GO.”

I think that’s the right attitude to have. Enjoy the achievement but remember it’s not the end of the road.

So many of us talk about the exemplary quality of airports abroad. We’re impressed with the scale of Heathrow in London, the efficiency of Schoenfeld in Berlin, or the shopping opportunities of the International Airport in Dubai. However, we fail to realise we’ve got many such impressive airports back home.

The win for Hyderabad is further testament to the fact that when it comes to international airports, India has arrived.

Telangana logs in Google to reboot digital plan

Source: Times of  India, Dt: 4.3.17.

HYDERABAD: In a major boost to Telangana's digitisation efforts, the state on Friday inked an MoU with Google India after a meeting between IT minister KT Rama Rao and company representatives.

Google India will provide Google Cloud credits and access to all cloud platform to start-ups in T-hub as well as provide technical mentors to Making government sites mobile-friendly, helping local businesses get online, android courses for students to skill them in app development and, as part of Google Cultural Institute project, creating a digital repository of architectural and cultural heritage of the state is part of the plan.

The state also intends to train rural women through the 'Internet Saathi' programme. It will train women from Self-Help Groups and women's federations overseen by Tata Trusts. These master trainers (Saathis) will then train other women.

Thanking the state government for its support, Google India director (public policy) Chetan Krishnaswamy said: "We are delighted to support the government in its vision of a digitally empowered state. We look forward to working with the state government to create an enabling environment and ecosystem to help the people."

Praising Google, KTR said: "Google is a valuable partner. Our mission is to digitise Telangana and a partnership with Google will go a long way in ensuring our plans are achieved."

ZF opens first technology centre in Hyderabad

Source: Telangana Today, Dt: 4.3.17.

Telangana Industries and IT Minister K T Rama Rao who inaugurated the centre, said, ZF can support the Government in making Hyderabad a mobility engineering cluster.

Hyderabad: Germany-based ZF Friedrichshafen AG, a driveline and chassis technology provider, which also offers active and passive safety technology opened its first technology centre in India in Hyderabad. The ZF India Technology Center (ITC) will strengthen ZF’s presence in the country with expected investment of €15 million (Rs 105 crore) over the next five years. 

The company which announced its plans to set up this centre in September last year established it in just 6-7 months. This centre will employ 2,500 professionals by 2020. 

The ITC will be involved in high-end innovations, which will focus on bringing advanced technology to India as well as localising strategic business activities including research, design and development for global markets. It will also leverage academic research communities and talent pool for global development projects. 

Integrated approach
ZF CEO Stefan Sommer told Telangana Today, “We will continue to invest in India in increasing business and production. We will try to localise more and ramp up operations. Safety regulations will increase in India and we will talk to our clients in providing the technology and systems. Other centres in India are production centres. We plan to begin exports from India. The Hyderabad centre will take care of the software development.”
He informed, “We will be launching more products with high degree of Indian content going forward. We will increase production capacities in Pune as more demand picks up. Hyderabad centre will play a key role in integrating with ZF’s other centres. We have also tied up technology partners such as TCS and Tech Mahindra besides several others.”
“All over the world, there is a change in mobility, automation and interest in cars. With growing global warming, automotive transmissions and emissions have become critical. There is a growing important of zero emissions and zero accidents and ZF is striving to create technologies that ensure them,” Stefan said.
The new centre will be involved in electronics, embedded software and mechanical engineering. It will support ZF’s global development teams while enabling the company to accelerate local product development supporting ZF automotive and non-automotive operations and customers in India.
Mamatha Chamarthi, chief digital officer of ZF, added, “The India Technology Center will be rapidly integrated into the engineering ecosystem of ZF and become a pillar of innovation for the company. As demand for software engineering grows, ZF will exponentially increase capacity to help meet customers’ growth aspirations in both the global and local market.”

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Investing in Telangana
K T Rama Rao, Minister for IT, MA & UD, Industries & Commerce, Government of Telangana said, “We look at this investment by ZF as an ecosystem builder for Hyderabad and are extremely happy to see Telangana as ZF’s choice for their first ever India Technology Center. We will continue to strive making our State a business and investor friendly place helping corporates like ZF to expand their footprints in this region.”
ZF and its partners have been operating for more than five decades in the Indian market, with corporate headquarters at ZF Business Park, Pune. Today, ZF is present in 21 locations serving the automotive and non-automotive segments in the region, including two wholly owned subsidiaries of ZF and six joint ventures of ZF and ZF TRW.
In India, the Group has a strong local mechanical engineering team that supports product development and application engineering for both the automotive and non-automotive customers. The consolidated resource strength for the group, including the joint ventures is about 14,000 employees.

Innovation and CSR
ZF has rolled out an innovation challenge and as a result of which it is encouraging engineering students to drive innovation in the automotive space in a wide ranging spectrum from creating autonomous driving vehicles, smart sensors and IoT-based drive monitoring.
On the CSR front, ZF is tying up with Akshay Patra foundation, a non-profit organisation providing mid-day meals to children, by sponsoring a van to transport food to schools in remote locations in Hyderabad. By this activity nearly 5,000 students from government schools will be benefiting, reducing starvation of underserved children.

Hyderabad is home to six billionaires

Source: PTI, The Hindu, Dt: 27.2.17

Hyderabad is home to 9,000 millionaires and 6 billionaires with a total wealth of USD 310 billion, while India’s financial capital Mumbai, is home to 46,000 millionaires and 28 billionaires and is the richest Indian city with a total wealth of USD 820 billion, says a report.

According to the New World Wealth Report 2016, released by the global wealth intelligence and market research company, Mumbai is the richest city in the country followed by Delhi and Bengaluru in the second and third place, respectively.

Delhi is home to 23,000 millionaires and 18 billionaires with a total wealth of USD 450 billion, while Bengaluru with a total wealth of USD 320 billion houses 7,700 millionaires and 8 billionaires.

Kolkata is home to 9,600 millionaires and 4 billionaires and has a total wealth of USD 290 billion, Pune (total wealth of USD 180 billion, has 4,500 millionaires and 5 billionaires), Chennai (USD 150 billion, 6,600 millionaires, 4 billionaires) and Gurgaon (USD 110 billion with 4,000 millionaires and 2 billionaires). Some of the other emerging cities in terms of total wealth include, Surat, Ahmedabad, Visakhapatnam, Goa, Chandigarh, Jaipur and Vadodara. The total wealth held in the country amounts to USD 6.2 trillion (as of December 2016) and the country is home to 264,000 millionaires and 95 billionaires in total.

“Over the next decade, India is expected to benefit from strong growth in the local financial services, IT, real estate, healthcare and media sectors, in particular, the local hospital services.

Denmark's DESMI opens production facility in Hyderabad

Source: Money Control, Dt:22.2.2017

 

Denmark-based DESMI today opened its first production facility in India which would manufacture oil spill response equipment and pumps. The facility is located at Nadergul village, Adibatla in Telangana. DESMI specialises in the development and manufacture of pump solutions for marine & offshore, industry, oil spill equipment, defence & fuel and utility segments, according to a company statement. DESMI started its Indian operations with a liaison office in 2013. Understanding the business potential and with an objective to strengthen its presence in India, DESMI decided to set-up this 3,000 sqm advanced production facility at Adibatla, the company said. "DESMI's primary focus would be to produce oil spill response equipment and then to assemble the pumps and pumping solutions locally in India," the statement said..

AIIMS for Telangana

Source: Times of India, Dt: 9.2.2017

The Centre on Thursday announced an All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS) for Telangana. It will be located near Hyderabad city. Union finance minister Arun Jaitley confirmed this with TRS MPs A Jitender Reddy and B Vinod. The formal announcement on this will be made in the Parliament during the debate on the union budget.

"Arun Jaitley informed us that the Centre will give AIMS to Telangana and the announcement will be made in Parliament. We are thankful to him for fulfilling the promise made to the state," said Jitender Reddy.

Another TRS MP B Vinod confirmed this stating the Centre will also announce the funds to be earmarked for the AIMS near Hyderabad. Sources said the TRS government wants to upgrade the NIMS at Bibinagar to AIMS level and has submitted a proposal to this regard initially. But the Centre wanted to construct an exclusive AIMS in Hyderabad city to cater the needs of over one crore people. Patients from neighbouring Karnataka, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh also come to Hyderabad for medical treatment.

The TRS government is also trying to get an assurance from the centre on setting up of an IIM, a Police Battalion, a tribal university, an IISC and a separate High Court during the current budget session. "We will bring pressure on the NDA government for the announcement on IIMS, tribal university and police battalion as they were promised in the reorganisation act," said Jitender Reddy.

Outskirts of Hyderabad might see jump in construction activity

Source: ET Realty, Dt: 2.2.2017

With affordable housing being the catchphrase of Budget 2017, the focus could well shift from core areas of Hyderabad to its cheaper peripheries, said market analysts post Arun Jaitley's close to two-hour-long speech on Wednesday. The bouquet of incentives that the finance minister showered on this segment, however, left industry biggies disappointed.

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"Though a lot of people think Hyderabad does not have the potential to grow in the affordable housing segment, I feel otherwise. The city's outskirts, where land rates are cheaper, are perfect destinations for such ventures that have so far not been economically viable," said Sandip Patnaik, managing director (Hyderabad) of global real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle. He felt the benefits extended to this segment were very encouraging.

Apart from an increased carpet area, affordable housing was also awarded the 'infrastructure status'. This will result in bigger homes for buyers and lower interest rates for developers. The average projected cost of these homes is Rs 15– Rs 20 lakh.

"This will push more local players to take up small projects that they shied away from until now. Currently, the city has just about two or three firms that build homes under 900 square feet," said S Ram Reddy, president, Confederation of Real Estate Developers' Association of India (CREDAI – Hyderabad). He said, "Increased activity in this segment will also enhance sales among customers, primarily from the lower middle class."

That the government has eased the burden of capital gains tax on land owners – part of joint development agreements – will further ensure that the cost of these properties does not shoot northwards, experts said. "Until now, land owners had to pay a hefty capital gains tax – anywhere between Rs 200 and Rs 300 per sft of the land owner's share -- the moment they signed a deal with a developer. Now, they can pay this only once the project is completed. This will give them a breather and also make land transactions smooth," Reddy said.

Another high point of the Budget, according to the industry is the reduction in holding period for capital gains tax on immovable properties from three to two years. This means that a customer can now sell his or her house within two years of buying it, without having to pay this tax. The ceiling was three years until now.

"This might attract investors to the Hyderabad market, which is largely end-user driven. If investors can exit a project within two years, they would be more willing to park their money in the city," said Veera Babu, managing director (Hyderabad) of Cushman & Wakefield, another leading real estate service provider.

But while the construction and sale of cheaper homes might see increased in activity soon, major developers in the city say there's no hope for mid-sized or big-ticket projects. "We are extremely disappointed. Neither have we been awarded industry status (which would reduce lending rates for builders) and nor have individual tax-payers (those who comprise our prospective client base) been given much relief. So there's unlikely to be any jump in construction activity or sale of homes in these segments," said D S Prasad, director, Aparna Constructions.