OPINION | Google, Vizag and Bengaluru: Questions about policy of progress and intent

The social media exchange between the two political-dynastic-scions across Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka has been as expected. Seen in context of current mood in Bengaluru, where entrepreneurs are waging a very different battle - against crumbling roads, civic apathy, and political hostility - the debate is bitter. As the city’s industrialists complained about decaying infrastructure, the state’s leadership has chosen to respond with antagonistic-admonition. Ministers have publicly scolded the business community, one has urged them to use their CSR funds to build roads.

Karnataka’s industrialists are outliers

The contrast could not have been starker. Andhra Pradesh rolled out the red carpet; Karnataka told its wealth creators to pick up the broom. In Bengaluru, this became public, only because an industrialist had the courage to speak truth to power about the city’s civic decay - something that too few in corporate India now dare to do openly.

In other metros, leading industrial voices have grown muted, choosing polite silence or performative optimism on social media, content to post “hail hail” messages instead of demanding accountability. Most would rather deploy their politics, access, and goodwill to secure personal or business outcomes, rather than stand up for the larger public-good that ultimately sustains those very enterprises.

Three questions and a paradox

Yet beneath these optics lies a deeper public-policy conundrum.

• What exactly defines a state’s socio-economic vision? 


• Is it the number of MoUs signed, or the quality of life it sustains? 


• Should a government’s ambition be measured by the sops it doles out, or by the resilience of the cities it governs?

If we are wary of their influence, what exactly are we inviting? Are we building the capacity to regulate, localise, and innovate - or simply renting our geography to global giants in the hope of reflected political glory? The question is whether our policies are mature enough, and if our supervisory-systems are capable of enforcement capabilities, to balance sovereignty with strategy, and ambition with autonomy.

The truth is that industrial-competitiveness cannot be bought through subsidies alone. A modern state’s credibility is built as much on governance predictability, infrastructure reliability, and liveability as on tax concessions. To be fair, Bengaluru, for all its flaws, did not become India’s technology capital because of handouts. It became so because it nurtured talent, openness, and aspiration.

Beyond the red carpet

India’s economic federalism has always been competitive, but of late, it is performative. Every marquee investment triggers a chorus of self-congratulation in one state and envy in another. But not all competition is virtuous. Gujarat, for instance, mastered the art of structured development - strong administrative review, single-window clearances, and a relentless focus on execution. Tamil Nadu, with less fanfare, evolved into a manufacturing powerhouse and a quietly efficient technology hub.

Mumbai and Pune — the once financial and industrial powerhouses — are being suffocated by the same paradox that haunts Bengaluru: poor liveability for the not-rich. Infrastructure bottlenecks, urban decay, and political distractions have eroded their sheen. Despite massive ongoing infrastructure projects, the overall narrative remains one of civic-fatigue and diminishing ambition. Economic stagnation often hides beneath political freebies and the comfort of legacy industries, leaving the state reliant on its old guard of financial services and corporate headquarters rather than emerging as a hub for new-age industries and innovation.

The challenge ahead of an Assam

And yet, smaller states like Assam have begun to show promise - cautiously attracting corporate interest and testing the waters of large-scale industrial participation.

Their challenge is different: they must now convert interest into sustainable competence. That requires not only skilling and infrastructure but also a mindset shift - from seeing investment as a trophy to embedding it as a societal transformation.

This is where the heart of India’s investment debate lies. Are states chasing the symbolism of investment or the substance of development? The distinction matters deeply. A subsidy-driven project may bring immediate political capital, but not necessarily long-term economic value.

Is public policy only about attracting investments?

Somewhere along the way, our public policy imagination has narrowed. When policymaking becomes synonymous with wooing capital, it risks missing its central purpose — to improve lives, expand opportunity, and create social equity through economic means.

The gap between promise and performance isn’t new. Over the years, state investment summits have generated dazzling tallies of MoUs - running into hundreds of billions of dollars. Yet, only a fraction of those announcements ever materialise.

Governments often forget that the most magnetic force for sustainable investment isn’t a discount on land or power, but the availability of skilled talent and the assurance of good living conditions. A young engineer deciding between Hyderabad, Bengaluru, NCR, Chennai, and Visakhapatnam is not just looking for salary or designation. They are looking also for quality schools, healthcare, public safety, and the dignity of a functioning city. Talent follows liveability. And investment follows talent.

Yet, the state of many of our cities today - choked roads, unreliable infrastructure, and declining public services - exposes how fragile that commitment has become. Corruption, too, remains ever-present - even in the small, exhausting frictions of everyday life that citizens face to get the simplest civic tasks done.

The question, then, is not whether Andhra Pradesh’s deal with Google is a good or bad one. It is whether we are asking the right questions at all.

Are we evaluating these deals in terms of fiscal prudence, social multiplier, and institutional reform?

Economic storytelling has to return to its moral centre — growth that is visible, inclusive, and sustainable. Otherwise, the subsidies only becomes a transfer from public exchequer to private boardroom.

Because in the end, good investments, and sustainable employment-generating ones, are like social magnets. And governments, in a democracy, should remember that their policy is not just to create magnates — or make current ones much bigger into monopolies or duopolies — but to create magnets of opportunity that can hold society together.