90 days and Loving it. Hyderabad Rocks

One more month has passed since my 60 day update.. . Things are still looking excellent and the recent festivals added to the +ve thoughts about our move so far. With diwali and dusshera occuring very close to each other, we had ample opportunities to visit family, relax and enjoy the good times in Hyderabad.

Finally my son is in ukg / school and he seems to like the environment a lot. Everyone from the director of the school to his class teachers were flexible and willing to work with us, to get him accustomed to the new environment. We showed up 1.5 months later than our scheduled date and paid the term fee ( Rs 7500 ) for the current term. The fee covers everything including his meals and supplies. Uniforms and Bus are separate... due to the proximity of the school to our house, we decided to drop/pick him by car for the first month.

Boy-o-Boy, kids from my experience so far do nothing but watch TV/Cartoons and Movies. I am trying to get my kid outdoors, couple of my team members gave me references to a cricket/tennis training facility, another one gave me a reference to a taekwondo teacher who comes home to teach kids, etc. I am going for Cricket primarily to get him used to a team sport and tennis for the physical activity. Will update more on these once I finalize on them.

Started driving on my own during night and evening hours. I was driving in hyderabad before I came to the US, but it feels very different now since the traffic in hyderabad is in the worst shape I have ever seen. You should have seen the traffic between Road #3 and Punjagutta on the day before diwali weekend. Took me almost 1 hour, to get from jubilee checkpost to punjagutta center.

I am still lagging in taking care of myself on the Physical Fitness front, but I decided to make the best out of the situation by taking the stairs at the office. Some of my team look at me like I am crazy, but I plan to continue doing this as much as I can.

My pet projects are finally on track and I am doing my best to spend atleast 1 to 2 hours a week on them. Currently looking for some junior programmers that can help me with the basic work... heard that I can hire some good parttime programming help for less than Rs 5000, which should solve some major bottlenecks for me.

AP/Hyderabad Barbers and Dhobi's contribute more to GDP than Software

Interesting article in DC today, not sure if the facts are being shown in the right light, but was an interesting read ;-).

Central Statistical Orgn of India has calculated the addition to AP State GDP due to its IT sector ( may be non-bpo?) as 1490 crores. At the same time, their survey indicates that dhobi's contributed 526 crores and barbers contributed 519 crores and tailors contributed 447 crores equating to a total of 1492 crores.

The positive aspect is that service sector is growing along with the rising income levels, but I am disheartened by the fact that we are only generating 300 Million USD in the state in IT services.

Hyderabad Real Estate : Corruption, Investments and My Strategy

Housing / Real Estate are the most expensive in Hyderabad. With 1 sq. yard .. equivalent of 9 sq. ft going for an average of 20,000 in most live-able areas and upto 50,000 in the posh areas, it has become a challenge to find a suitable living space in Hyderabad. Commercial / Main road / prime plots if not kabza'd or taken over by crooks/politicians will fetch you 100,000 per sq yd on main roads of Jubilee and Banjara hills.

Corruption is very rampant in real estate transactions in the best areas of the city. There are some plots being sold with multiple registrations and some being put under litigation by the original owners / pattadar's of the nawab time. Now a days, it has become compulsory to have every member of the seller/original owners family sign on the sale deed to avoid any issues in the future. Settlement mafia's are rampant, they some how get the common people with good land into trouble and settle for 10-20% of the value etc..

On real estate investments in apts and houses, its important to realize that the days of 100-300% returns are gone if you invest today, and even the 50-100% returns are very rare. The large returns are available to the folks who are plugged in to the political/industrial families and can acquire land before projects are announced or for companies like infosys [ who is evolving to be the biggest land grabber in India today ].

Coming back to the housing thing, the house I currently rent would cost me around 3 to 4 crores to buy ( 30 to 40 Million rupees).. and the possibility of this area moving up 100% in 1 year is very unlikely.. [ who knows.. I have been wrong many times..;-) ]

My thought wrt buying in my favourite area is different.. Correct me if I am wrong.. I some how am not too big on house ownership after living through it in the US. Too much of dead capital .. Atleast we had home equity loans to draw upon in the US. Now, I pay 30,000 pm / ~Rs 10/sqft all inclusive.. [ No extra charge for maintenance, repairs, servant quarter, solar heater, 24 hr muncipal water .. and just have to let my landlord know to get things fixed when they are broken etc. ]. Yes, 30K are running out of your account pm, but I would hear a giant sucking sound if I had to pay the bank @ 11% on a loan of 24 Mil Rs...

Here is my understanding about deductability of interest in India.. The max deduction you can have on housing interest is 1.5Lac/annum so going to a max of 15 Lac loan@10% will get you the best benefit for the early years. A nice article here. . .... So, what good does it do paying 4 Lacs of interest on a 40 Lac Loan ?. I certainly agree that appreciation is there, but do you think its worth buying an apt in the current market at Rs.5000/sqft ?

Some of you asked me what I am doing with the money if I have not bought a house.. I still have a sizeable amount left in the USD, dont want to touch it unless I am sure I can consistently beat the ~15% I am able to generate Year over Year. Of the money I have in hand, some risk capital has gone into speculative land deals [ Jai Telangana ;-) ], invested in some mid level housing where the values are more affordable and can fetch some good rental income and thirdly sticking to the true and tried 15% compounding with some of the investments. With the small amount left, I am trying to leverage it as a down payment to leverage a govt subsidized investment in a family business/ industrial unit.

Hope this strategy will pay off in the long run and I am not too worried about the future since Uncle Sam and Social Security are supposed to take care of me and my family ;-).. Yeah Right !!!

All feedback regarding this article is welcome...

Utilities, Telephone and Other Bills in Hyderabad

Typically 10 - 15 th of the month is where I receive all my Bills. So far, I have not seen any shockers but here is a summary of my observations. Many companies including mine, have eseva centers within their campus where you can pay off the bills. My driver can also handle this for me, but I decided to visit and experience the eseva facilities this week. Will update on that later...

Electric Bill : The bill was for 242 units, for Rs 752 including all taxes. The pricing for power in hyderabad varies based on tier/slab. 3.05 per unit upto 200 units, 4.75 upto 300 units, 5.50 or above 300 units. This amount is still reasonable considering we have been using our Fridge, TV's, Laptops, Lights, Fans etc along with partial usage of A/C's for the last 20 days.

Gas : Cooking gas seems to be very scarce now a days with the govt subsidized domestic cylinder going for Rs 300 and equivalent commercial cylinder going for Rs 600. So, most restaurants, hotels are using domestic cylinders causing a shortage in the market, also a rush towards installing lpg kits in auto's and taxi's is inflating the demand for cooking gas. Most people seem to have more than 2 or 3 connections and rotate their cylinders without ever running out of gas. I have not applied for a connection of my own yet, we are just using the cylinders, regulators provided by friends and family. I will soon be joining one of the groups by adding a few empty cylinders of my own to the pool.

Milk : Plenty of supply around, many diaries that have sprung up in AP including Heritage, Vijaya, Mother Diary etc., supply a lot of options in Fat Content etc. A near by store delivers our milk by 7:30 every morning. Toned milk costs Rs 16 per litre while whole milk costs Rs 20 per litre. Expect to spend around Rs 700 with delivery charges etc. There are other options from local farmers etc., for now..we are sticking to the pasteurized options until our kids get used to the change.

Internet : Expect to spend around Rs 1000. Most companies reimburse this expense unless you work for someone that doesnt put you on a leash via a Laptop. I am yet to figure out the best mix of connections to have. I have SIFY broadband at home but its been very unreliable [ recently some one cut off and stole 1/2KM of cable in my neighborhood ]. I am testing a tata indicom wireless broadband card for backup and it is working fine for browsing/email/telnet etc.

Maid/Driver etc. : Looking for a reliable driver and maid ?, good luck!!!.. Driver rates vary from 3 to 4.5K depending on whether they are also acting as your errand runners or not. Some drivers refuse to do any household chores/errands etc., so ask this question ahead of time. Maid's and Maid Services are available between 1 to 2K, but finding a reliable one is the toughest task of all.

Non-Telugu speaking junta arriving in hyderabad will realize that hiring a hindi speaking driver/maid will be the biggest challenge. A colleague of mine is paying 5K to his driver just to keep a Hindi speaking driver/errand guy around during his 1st year in Hyderabad. He says everyone including the watchman cannot speak Hindi and its becoming a challenge for his family. The local hindi speaking labor has moved into professional jobs with Security, Construction, Transportation companies and the new arrivals are from coastal AP and have very limited/zero Hindi... may not be a bad idea to buy "Learn telugu in 30 days" before you arrive.

15 mins are up.. more next time..

Hyderabadi's Travel Update

With my trip for an offsite meet, I really did not get a chance to update the blog.. My trip to kerala was very exhausting but rewarding. An excellent networking opportunity with global leadership teams. It exceeded all my expectations of an offsite meet. Work and Fun were well balanced with a cruise on kerala backwaters, snake boat races and performing arts demonstrations including panjavadyam, thayyam, kalari-payattu ( martial arts ) etc., and my favourite was kalari-payatt.

Kerala Cuisine, was heavily based in coconut sauces, and was centered around SeaFood/Fish dishes. I dont remember the names of all the dishes, but overall the food was excellent. I tried every item in the buffet for the first 2 days and ended up with an upset stomach towards the end of day 3. My favourite of all was Ada-Pradhamam { a payasam like dessert made with jaggery etc. }

Hyderabad Fab City In Trouble ?

Deccan Chronicle reports that state govt has decided to cut the SemIndia Fab city role to 75 acres from a proposed 5000 acre operation. Mr Agarwal of SemIndia was supposed to have his initial plant operational by June 2007 and all indications are that he has not started any work yet. Govt seems to have decided that it will give the remaining land on lease to any semiconductor company that wants to setup here.

Though all indications are that this will be revived through a renewed effort of bringing in small players into this project, the recent news for Hyderabad has not been very good in the manufacturing sector. Dell and other companies that were being invited by this great city have decided to move to Chennai. Chennai is slowly gaining momemtum to be the biggest manufacturing base in south india..