“Thankfully, it is not the case now and I managed to get a job in Coimbatore itself,” he said.
Sathishkumar isn’t alone. He says most of his friends have also found jobs in Coimbatore.
Some years ago, Coimbatore was mostly known for its textile mills and large cotton industry. But today, Tamil Nadu’s second-largest city has evolved into an IT powerhouse with many infotech companies setting up shop in the past few years.
Companies that were once reluctant to move their business to the city of about 3 million people are now picking Coimbatore over other bigger cities because of its good infrastructure and state-of-the-art technology parks.
It now ranks as the 13th best start-up destination in India according to a 2023 report by the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM).
According to data from the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, the number of start-ups in the city has shot up to 1,350 today from only 271 in 2020.
“Although the companies are from different sectors, most of the start-ups are IT and IT-enabled services companies,” said a department official who did not want to be identified.
While industry experts point to the availability of talent in tier-2 cities like Coimbatore, government officials emphasise its rapid growth that caters to the demands of young working professionals and companies.
“Companies see a lot of untapped potential in tier-2 cities like Coimbatore, which contributes at least about 25 percent of the software exports from Tamil Nadu,” said Ramesh Alluri Reddy, an IT business analyst and CEO of TeamLease Degree Apprenticeship.
“It was largely after Covid that companies wanted to move closer to the talent as it is easy for them to operate,” added Reddy.
IT parks filling up as firms eye Coimbatore
To be sure, Coimbatore is no stranger to infotech firms: IT giant Cognizant was among the first to spot its potential when it began operations in the city as far back as 2005.
However, initially, infotech firms were still few and far between. And Coimbatore was still called the Manchester of South India because of its textile mills.
Today, it’s not just start-ups—even bigger IT companies are looking at Coimbatore as a potential place to expand their base.
According to NASSCOM, Accenture and Infosys are among the big IT companies eyeing Coimbatore, as they look to grow in tier-2 cities. They will join a string of IT giants such as TCS, IBM and Tech Mahindra, who have already begun operations in Coimbatore.
Coimbatore’s rise as an IT powerhouse is evident from the fact that the Tamil Nadu government’s IT park set up on a 61-acre plot in the city in 2010 is full.
On 5 November, Chief Minister M.K. Stalin inaugurated a new IT tower with around 2.94 lakh sq ft of space at the cost of Rs 158.32 crore on the Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu’s (ELCOT) premises in the IT park.
According to ELCOT, two companies have already been given space in the new location and talks are on with more firms. It did not reveal the names.
“We are looking at the profiles of companies that will be able to stay at the location for a long time, say a minimum of five years. We do not want our children to suffer after giving the space to a company that cannot run for long years in the city,” ELCOT managing director R. Kannan told ThePrint.
Although work on the newly inaugurated ELCOT tower was initiated during the previous All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) government, an IT ministry source told ThePrint it was the current minister, Palanivel Thiagarajan, who pushed to speed up the work.
Sources at the Ministry of Information Technology and Digital Services told ThePrint that there was huge demand for IT spaces in the city. Coimbatore has at least five IT parks, including four private ones.
“One MNC was willing to take up the entire 2.94 lakh sq ft. However, it would go against the principles of supporting IT companies. And so, we have asked them to take up limited space,” the source said.
Even private IT parks in Coimbatore are almost full, with some firms planning to expand their business.
For instance, the KGISL IT park in the suburb of Saravanampatti has decided to double its existing 4 lakh sq ft of space.
KGISL vice president R. Mageshwaran told ThePrint that growing demand was pushing the firm to expand its base.
“Now the entire facility is completely full. We have decided to expand it close to the existing IT park. It must be functional in another one or two years,” he said.
Also read: How DMK is trying to reclaim lost forts in Tamil Nadu’s west & south, with Stalin taking lead
No longer a sleepy city
Why is Coimbatore suddenly soaring in the popularity charts?
For professionals, the lower cost of living, pleasant weather and low pollution are big draws.
IT professionals are also heading to Coimbatore because it is no longer a sleepy city that goes to bed by 10 p.m. but is now buzzing late into the night with the growth of entertainment and leisure facilities.
Today, almost all the city’s lake shores have spaces for people to spend their leisure time and parks for children to play. Coimbatore also has at least five shopping malls and many resto-bars have mushroomed in the past few years.
“Who would have thought a city where you couldn’t get food after 8 in the evening would grow to this level, where IT companies compete with each other to set up their base,” said an IAS officer who has previously worked with ELCOT in Coimbatore.
“Being a communally sensitive city, Coimbatore, since the bomb blast in 1998, used to sleep as early as 10. It was one of the reasons IT companies did not prefer the city even when their companies were drowning in water in 2015,” added the officer.
The city changed after the pandemic with a slew of new infrastructure projects, including the restoration of Coimbatore’s lakes and the building of model roads and flyovers that decongested the city’s traffic to a large extent.
An official from a leading private IT park also says the city has changed dramatically.
“Some five years ago, when TIDEL approached companies to expand their base in Coimbatore, they would complain about the city’s nightlife,” said the TIDEL Park official.
“They earn money, but where would they spend the money? There was not any space for them to spend their leisure hours, except the small parks,” he added.
Why companies prefer Coimbatore
For companies, the biggest attraction is the wealth of talent because of the many engineering colleges and top-class technology infrastructure in the city.
Several IT start-up founders ThePrint spoke to cited the availability of a solid talent pool in the city as a key factor.
Ask ANGA Information Technologies CEO Shanmugapriya Veerasamy why she chose Coimbatore and her answer is simple: “What’s not in Coimbatore now?”
“Unlike earlier, internet connectivity and the availability of space are easy in Coimbatore. All that we needed to start a company was space, internet connectivity and laptops,” she said. Her company has been operating out of Coimbatore since 2018.
She added: “The only challenge we expected was the availability of talent, but with all the top engineering colleges in the city, we got enough talent both from the same city and other cities.
IT sector experts say Coimbatore became more popular as a start-up destination after the pandemic, which pushed many professionals to move back from bigger cities to their hometowns and other tier-2 cities in Tamil Nadu.
Experts say people from southern districts prefer Coimbatore over Chennai and other bigger cities because of the shorter travel time to their hometowns.
The IT boom has also opened up job opportunities for young professionals.
“The pandemic has driven people back to their homes and after being used to the work-from-home culture, people are looking for jobs in their hometowns,” said Reddy.
“Companies have also realised the loss of productivity in bigger cities for a lot of reasons, including traffic congestion. Hence, companies prefer tier-2 cities like Coimbatore,” he added.
Coimbatore start-ups have also seen skilled engineers, product marketers and sales professionals from bigger cities moving to the city because of its growing job market.
Government officials say at least 50,000 job opportunities have been created in the past three years.
“Over the years, we have welcomed several skilled professionals who previously worked in Chennai and Bangalore,” said Saravana Kumar, CEO and founder of Kovai.co, an IT start-up in Coimbatore.
“More recently, Coimbatore’s growth as a city—with its pleasant climate, affordable housing and strong educational infrastructure—has helped us attract talent from major cities like Bengaluru and Hyderabad as well,” he added.
Reddy also credits the Tamil Nadu government’s Naan Mudhalvan scheme for training college students to meet industry needs.
Naan Mudhalvan is a scheme that offers free courses and training programmes for students to develop skills practically with the help of industry professionals.
Apart from Coimbatore, the state government is also expanding IT and ITes spaces in every district through the industries department as well as the Information Technology and Digital services department.
ELCOT managing director Kannan said the government aimed to improve infrastructure in other tier-2 and tier-3 cities.
Tamil Nadu has 18 Special Economic Zones, of which eight are run by ELCOT.
Apart from the existing IT park, ELCOT is also planning to build two more IT parks at a cost of Rs 2,000 crore, which it estimates would generate job opportunities for another 35,000 people.
“The reason to decentralise is to make the life of the youths in our state easy as they all have been travelling long distances—to Chennai, Bangalore, Pune and Hyderabad—to work,” said ELCOT Managing Director Kannan.
“The reason why companies were hesitant all these years was the lack of social infrastructure like restaurants, malls, and entertainment facilities. But now Coimbatore is picking up just like Bangalore. Other cities will also slowly pick up soon,” he added.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
Also read: Vijay’s TVK has stirred up TN politics. Dravidian parties rush to draw youth, smaller ones wary too