Does anyone remember Hyderabad anymore? A city with sukoon, fursat and chai. A city where people switched off the lights at home and young men assembled under streetlights? A city where friends and families watched movies in cinema halls called Sangeet, Anand, Skyline, Lighthouse, Shanti, Amba and Manohar. And young men would sneak into a show at Lamba or Tivoli?
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A city that graduated from haggling with rickshaw-pullers to autorickshaw drivers (half return after 9 p.m.) — to app-based surge pricing? A city that had boundaries: ‘androon’ for the city and ‘bairoon’ for the suburbs? A time when Patancheru was serviced by the suburban bus service of the Andhra Pradesh Road Transport Corporation? But for people in Telangana towns such as Warangal, Nalgonda and Gadwal, it was ‘Patnam’; and Secunderabad was ‘Lashkar’.
When G. Kasturi of The Hindu landed in Hyderabad in 1975 to select a site for the office, it took him all of four minutes to reach the Begumpet office. It was also the year that the Hyderabad Urban Development Authority notified the Master Plan for the Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad area, which covered about 173 square kilometres. Now HUDA is HMDA, MCH is GHMC, and it can take nearly an hour to reach Begumpet from the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Shamshabad.
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New visitors, tourists, job-seekers, parents of employees working in Hyderabad stream out of the airport and zip on the eight-lane Outer Ring Road (ORR) they just have to look out. If it is daytime, the razzle-dazzle of the city greets them; at night, it is the shimmer of towers touching the sky.
For old residents, it is as if a switch has been thrown while they were sleeping. “This city is changing every few months,” “unrecognisable,” and “the last time I was here, this flyover wasn’t there” are comments frequently heard from people who still remember the phrase ‘twin cities’.
It was in one corner of Hyderabad, beyond the Musi River, that the IT revolution began in Hyderabad — and simultaneously in India. Inside the Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI), just beside the library, is a marker commemorating the beginning of that revolution, dated September 1, 1976 — just three days before the launch of The Hindu’s Hyderabad edition. The Computer and Library Building was inaugurated by the then President of India, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed.
Author Dinesh Sharma traces the rise of Hyderabad’s software boom to Electronics Corporation of India Limited that was a spinoff of India’s nuclear quest, ASCI and the exit of IBM Computers after the Janata Party government tightened foreign exchange norms to boot out multinationals like Coca-Cola and IBM.
At ASCI, the work on software translated into simple packages on financial accounting, vehicle scheduling and marksheet tabulations that were hawked locally and eventually exported to Eastern Bloc countries like Bulgaria.
The isolationist policy of the Janata Party regime changed after Indira Gandhi returned to power.
In 1982, the Union Cabinet gave the nod to the New Computer Policy, just as India switched to colour television for the Asiad. In 1986, India under Rajiv Gandhi began allowing export of software using ‘satellite data links’.
A new era began in Hyderabad when India unveiled the Software Technology Parks scheme in June 1991. Within days, the STP in Hyderabad began functioning from five floors of the Maitrivanam complex in Ameerpet. The Software Technology Parks changed the software game by setting up earth stations for dedicated data links to the rest of the world.
A small IT company in Ameerpet was no longer small. It was as big as its dreams, and the young men and women who trained to enter this hot job market were not let down as the boom continued. The Madhapur STP was the kernel that grew into the Hyderabad growth story — one that has now evolved into an AI, visual effects and Global Capability Centre ecosystem that draws talent from across the world.
According to STPI data, “The total exports from the STPI-registered units under STPI-Hyderabad have gone from ₹4.76 crore in 1992-93 to ₹1,45,002.76 crore in FY 2024-25.” A growth of 304617 % that you can now see when you are in the western part of Hyderabad.
(serish.n@thehindu.co.in)
Published – September 04, 2026 05:30 am IST
