Part nine in our series on the explosive economic growth of small town India.
Exuberance would seem almost alien for this frontline town. On the frontline, that is, of the Naxalite war that sprouts like a red blister across much of central India. Says a wireless telecom sales manager plucked from a management school in Delhi and placed here: ?The truth is that while business is surprisingly good with people sick of land lines, I can?t venture out, worried sick as I am of land mines. Ranchi has no suburbs. Twenty miles out and you are in the Naxalite?s cross-hairs. I can?t believe how much time I spend at the bar these days?there is just nothing else to do around here.?
He may have a point. While cell phones have boomed?Bharti CEO Sunil Mittal said at a recent conference that the opportunity in Ranchi was spotted late?most don?t connect.
The real estate market though has boomed, regardless. Partly because Jharkhand became a state and expectations of growth of the sort witnessed by Dehra Dun propelled investor sentiment. The real action, however, is in the natural resource sector. You have a queue here for investing in mining, power and coal.
Says Tanmay Priadarshini of Jindal Steel: ?Things take time here. But make no mistake, once you realise the sort of resources the state has, you will appreciate that there are few better alternatives than Jharkhand. Sure, law & order can be tough, but the mining sector overall has the capacity to be a transforming agent in this state. We are very bullish about Ranchi.?
This being Ranchi, the main road is called simply that: Main Road. And here stands a five-star hotel in white marble, Capitol Hill. It houses another giant potential investor, ArcelorMittal. Currently playing the waiting game, the steel behemoth has its eyes fixed on the state. So do some 40 other steel and coal companies of various sizes who have signed MoUs.
However, says a senior Indian steel firm executive on the condition of anonymity: ?The only problem is that after the MoUs, nothing has moved. And some of the MoUs have even lapsed since the frame of reference is long over. There is also a lot of uncertainty, since PSU firms corner mines, so you are left groping in the dark in the middle of seemingly endless opportunity.? Transparency is alien in these parts. What you see is never what you get. This is India Inc as it used to be.
The mall culture, so conspicuous in other boomtowns, is absent in Ranchi?so far. Pantaloon, though, has big plans lined up. So the mall-going Indian will soon have a first cousin in Ranchi. Thus, while realty as a trigger for growth has been slow in coming, it?s now a reality. Apollo has set up the first real multi-facility hospital here and a seven-star hotel is also in the works.
The youth are hopeful, too. Some kids on motorbikes, restless like in the rest of India, are eating at a popular kebab joint on Main Road. I join the feast to see what the buzz among local youth is about. It?s a modest hum, almost a whisper. A couple of them are preparing to go to Delhi to take the IAS exam; two others work for telecom franchises. And all of them are unanimous about one thing: Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
If ever there was a motivational guru who could turn an entire people, it is he. Says 22-year-old Sarawak Gonda: ?Look, we have to aim at the top and if we have it in us, it is possible. If he can be one of just 11 in a billion, we are only looking to join the workforce.? The odds are indeed in his favour.
n Tomorrow: RANCHI