More on Bhopal

Continued from here.

Though Bhopal's claim to fame in bollywood remains the character of Soorma Bhopali potrayed by Jagdeep in Sholay, recently Bhopal has been the shoot location for a few bollywood movies. Prakash Jha who is shooting Rajneeti in Bhopal, said:

"... he had come to Bhopal for the first time in 1997 for the promotion of his film Mrityudand which featured Madhuri Dixit, Om Puri and Ayub Khan [and] was impressed by the beauty of the city even then and decided to return to the city to shoot his next film. 

Jha said Bhopal now has big hotels and good approach roads and that in the coming days, he may shoot at other locations in Madhya Pradesh."

The point here was not to highlight the bollywood connection (of which there are many ...), but to highlight that praise for Bhopal's infrastructure is not limited to commited Bhopalites like me :-).

A quick peek at Bhopal's Wikipedia page would tell you that Bhopal is a promising city - for example the Indian Space Research Organisation established a Master Control Facility in Ayodhya Nagar, to control the movements of satellites, second only after Hassan or that Bhopal is one of the six cities chosen to have an All India Institute of Medical Sciences campus apart from Delhi (this campus is right behind my house in Saket Nagar). 

However, what is vital is the emergence of another center of techno-commercial development like BHEL was in the 70s-80s. Till a few years ago an IT Park would have been the answer - but with the global economy in recession, IT is no more the sunrise sector. Bhopal is quite suitable for industries which are need knowledge capital which means qualified human resource.  And qualified human resource is always attracted to places which can provide a good lifestyle.

As of now the only sector which has been able to take advantage of the above factor has been education with a plethora of colleges/training institutions being opened  in the city in the past 5 years but there are sure some other sectors like food processing, renewable energy and biotech which can take advantage of the resources the city has to offer. 

I believe the beginning needs to be made by the State administration in attracting entreprenerus to start up in the city by providing them incentives. Lets hope someone's listening out there.

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