Phase 8A in Mohali, known as the IT Park, has become the technology employment hub of the Tricity, employing tens of thousands of engineers and professionals
What was agricultural land in the 1990s is now a campus of glass-and-steel office buildings housing multinationals, Indian IT firms, and startups
The IT corridor has changed not just Mohali’s economy but the demographics of the entire Tricity, drawing migrants from across India
On a Tuesday morning at 9am, the roads leading into Phase 8A in Mohali are moving at a pace that tells you something is being built here. The auto-rickshaws line up outside the sector gates. Office buses with company logos pull into designated stops. Young men and women in company IDs walk from the parking areas carrying laptops and coffee flasks. This is what a technology economy looks like at ground level: not spectacular, but purposeful.
Mohali’s IT Park, spread across Phase 8 and Phase 8A of the MOHALI Industrial Area, did not exist in any meaningful form before 2000. The land was agricultural. The concept of a technology corridor on the outskirts of Chandigarh was, in the late 1990s, an aspiration rather than a fact. What happened over the next twenty-five years is one of the more significant economic transformations in the Tricity’s history.
How It Started
The Punjab government began developing the IT corridor in earnest in the early 2000s, offering incentives to technology companies to set up operations in Mohali. MOHALI had a structural advantage: proximity to Chandigarh, which had an existing pool of educated professionals, connections to Delhi via road and rail, and land that was available at prices well below what comparable space would cost in Delhi or Gurgaon.
The early arrivals were cautious. A handful of mid-sized IT firms set up small offices. Infrastructure followed slowly. The real acceleration came in the mid-2000s as India’s IT sector boomed and companies looked for expansion locations beyond Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Delhi NCR. Mohali was competitive on cost, accessible by air from the new Chandigarh International Airport, and had a quality-of-life argument that Gurgaon’s developers could not make.
The Companies That Came
The major technology employers in Phase 8A now include several multinational technology companies and large Indian IT services firms. Infosys, Quark, DLF IT Park, and various BPO operations have established significant presences. The corridor also hosts engineering campuses, design firms, and a growing number of startups that have set up in the co-working spaces that opened in the late 2010s.
The employment numbers are substantial. Estimates vary, but the IT corridor in Mohali employs well over 50,000 professionals directly, with a significant multiplier effect on the surrounding economy. The restaurants, the apartment complexes, the gyms, the cafes along Aerocity Road: a significant proportion of their business comes from the IT corridor workforce.
Main Hyderabad se aaya tha 2008 mein. Pehle socha tha thodi der ke liye hai. Ab mera ghar yahaan hai, bachche yahaan padhte hain. Mohali ne change kar diya sochna. (I came from Hyderabad in 2008. I thought it was temporary. Now my home is here, my children study here. Mohali changed how I think.)Pradeep Venkataraman, software engineer, Phase 8A
The Infrastructure Story
The IT corridor’s growth forced infrastructure investment that Mohali might not have received otherwise. The roads in Phase 8 are wider and better maintained than many other parts of the city. The power supply, a critical issue for technology operations, is more reliable here than in residential sectors.
The Chandigarh International Airport, located on the boundary between Chandigarh and Mohali, made the corridor far more viable for companies whose clients required regular visits. Flight connectivity to Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, and subsequently to international destinations changed the calculus for companies considering Mohali as a serious location.
What Changed Around It
Aerocity, the township that developed adjacent to the airport, is largely a product of the IT corridor’s growth. The hotels, serviced apartments, restaurants, and retail that make up Aerocity serve a corporate population that the IT Park created.
The residential market in Mohali, particularly in the sectors adjacent to Phase 8, has been significantly shaped by the technology workforce. Apartment complexes with amenities that would not have been viable in a purely government-employee market exist because IT professionals created demand for them. Gym memberships, cafes serving specialty coffee, restaurants with menus in English: all of these are responses to a demographic that the IT corridor imported.
This has changed Mohali’s character in ways that are visible and occasionally contested. The city is more diverse by state and language than it was in 2000. The working culture of the IT sector, with its late evenings and weekend flexibility, has introduced patterns of urban life that sit somewhat awkwardly alongside the older Punjab rhythms of the city’s original residents.
The tension is manageable, and mostly managed. Mohali is pragmatic about its transformation. The economic argument is too strong to resist, and the quality of the transformation, on balance, has been positive.
Mohali IT Park | Symbolic picture | Photo: Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA) | For representation