My Travels - Gandhinagar - Part 2

Before reading this post, I suggest you read part 1.

Now that I have landed at the Ahmedabad airport, It was time for me to head to the company office in Gandhinagar. So I picked up a pre-paid taxi for Infocity, Gandhinagar

A few facts before we move ahead.

A. About Gandhinagar :- Gandhinagar is the capital of Gujarat. It has been named after the father of the nation - M.K. Gandhi. It is a planned city and hence at this place you will find names like sector-1, sector-2 and so on. Further there are very less traffic signals and to compensate for them, you have circles to navigate at various junctures. It is also said to be a green city. I think the reason for this would be: 1. all public transport vehicles like rickshaws and buses use CNG. 2. Planning of the city and 3. Lots of trees and gardens everywhere. Ahmedabad is certainly the biggest city of Gujarat but it is not planned and hence more like Mumbai.

B. About Infocity :- Infocity lies on the outskirts of Gandhinagar. It was an attempt by the Keshubhai Patel government of 2001 to bring IT companies to Gujarat. When I first heard about this place I expected it to be some huge complex with lots of buildings and lots of activities. But I was disappointed. It had only one building called as IT Tower 1. My company has two floors over there and plans to add one more. Besides, it has plan to develop a SEZ in Gujarat. Right now there is only one building but construction has begun for atleast 2 other towers. The infocity however has a residential township as well where people stay and that is a very good thing. It helps to reduce the commuting time. Apart from that, I also observed that since the residential was a part of the complex, there was wireless network present everywhere. That pleased me the most since I was able to access my mails and orkut which I am not able to do normally from office area.

The pre-paid taxi was quite costly (cost me arounf Rs.300) but as long as such costs are reimburesed by the company, I dont mind travelling in them.

People do say that Gujarat has really prospered in the past few years and it is growing even faster than China economically (around 15%). A major contribution to a fast growing economy is that of the roads and infrastructure. The roads in Gujarat are really good and I had a pleasant journey in the taxi as well with less traffic as well. The entire stretch from Ahmedabad to Infocity Gandhinagar was a smooth ride. Plus the rides that I have got once while travelling from Mumbai to Surat makes me believe that Gujarat is definitely doing good as far as roads go.

Well I have reached my office quite early and have a lot of time (around 2 hrs) to while away at the office.

This ends part 2 of the gandhinagar travels. In the next few parts I will describe a few more aspects of my stay.