Economy
Bhubaneswar was meant to house the state's machinery and hence was designed to be a largely residential city with outlying industrial areas. The city's economy had few major players till the 1990s and was dominated by Public Sector Units (PSU), retail and small scale manufacturing.
With the economic liberalisation policy adopted by the Government of India in the 1990s, Bhubaneswar received investment in telecommunications, Information Technology(IT) and higher education, particularly engineering. The city is home to around 105 engineering colleges (as of 2011) and the number is growing every year.
The late 2000s, saw a surge of investments in the real estate, infrastructure, retail, and hospitality sectors; several shopping malls and organised retails have opened their outlets in Bhubaneswar. Large corporates like DLF Universal and Reliance Industries have also entered the real estate market in the city. Bhubaneswar has been identified as the top ten emerging cities in India by Cushman and Wakefield, taking into consideration factors like demographics, physical, social and real estate infrastructure, current level and scope of economic activities and government support.
The minerals resources of Orissa have been the backbone of the economy dominated by government, the. Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) and private organizations like Essar Group, Indian Oil Corporation, Bhushan Steel, NALCO, Sterlite, Jindal, Vedanta and TATA Group.
Some of the populace live in slums. Migration from rural areas has led to the growth of slums which are a major challenge to the city's growth. The main problem of the city is transport, as the quality and length of roads have not increased with respect to the rise in number of vehicles.
The government has fostered growth by the development of IT Parks such as Infocity-1, the new Infocity-2, STPI-Bhubaneswar and JSS STP. The Infocity was conceived as a five-star park, under the Export Promotion Industrial Parks (EPIP) Scheme to create infrastructure facilities for setting up Information Technology related industries. Infosys and Satyam Computer Services Ltd. (known as Mahindra Satyam) have been present in Bhubaneswar since 1996. Other software companies include TCS, Mindfire Solutions, Wipro, IBM, Genpact, Firstsource, Mindtree, MphasiS, etc. Apart from the big multinational Information Technology (IT)/ Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES) companies, there are about 300 small and mid-sized IT companies and business start ups which have set up their offices in Bhubaneswar. The availability of local workers, the quality of life in the city and the pro-active local administration are the primary forces towards IT investments into the city. The The Ind-US Entrepreneurs (TiE) and Invest Bhubaneswar help in creating a platform to connect the businesses in Orissa and entrepreneurs worldwide.
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