Which city is best for MBA....Bangalore, Pune or Mumbai?

Do you find degradation in quality of life in Pune?

• I live in Pune. And have been travelling around major cities like Hyderabad, Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai. I wouldn't like to compare these cities yet, I would like to talk about Pune. Pune has been a demanding place for its Climate, Education, Culture, Jobs, Realty, Food and its purchasing power. Looking at the past 4 years, there is tremendous change in the city for good and bad. I would like to jot down some hazardous changes that have been worse. 1) The traffic in the city is growing enormously without any changes in the regulation to control it. The roads aren't well planned nor they are sufficient to accommodate the rising number of vehicles. The public transport is worse since years and rare implementation to improve. Road signs arent understandable. Overall rise in population and rash drivers. 2) The Realty boom in Pune is again extensive. No place to buy a house in city nor its affordable for a common man to leaving at the beginning outskrits. Even renting is costly. To my concern, not all projects are scientifically built and many illegal infrastructure is executed. So, expensive and haphazard town planning seems to be my concern. 3) The city has more than 50 engineering colleges, that lack well trained faculties as well as infrastructure. The government colleges figure is minimum causing expensive education. The university has its blemishes to improve the quality of syllabus. The schools lack the proper medium of teaching. The private classes are rising but again only capitalisation. This scenario seems to establish a wrong mindset about education system. 4) Only 1 major government hospital (irrespective of the recent Kashibai navale hospital) isnt sufficient to provide healthcare facilities to the rising population. 5) Food prices are exponentially rising. From vegetables to fast food, the prices are soaring without improvement in quality. Overall, looking at the purchasing power of the population, the city isn't becoming better, its worsening when it comes to the quality factors. Living in Pune is not easy and relaxing as it was years earlier. But, maintaining a good standard is our duty. What are your views on the situation?

• Answer:

  Having had stayed in other cities (Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi) for some years each, I think the question has a sense of being soft cornered towards Pune. Every city has its own negatives, no matter how big or established. I have lived in Pune for more than 3 years now, and have experienced firsthand that the city has grown big too fast (due to various factors) to cope up with its own pace. When something like this happens, quick and drastic decisions need to be taken by the city planners to enable development in an organized way. Two main things that need improvement are the public transport system (including widening roads, traffic management, enabling alternate modes of transport), and quality of public service in major educational and healthcare institutions These two are the needs of almost every city these days, so Pune is nothing special in this regard. One thing that should be mentioned here is that the rapid growth is not only beneficial for the urban population, but it also serves as a source of livelihood to the neighboring villages. You may wish for a peaceful small-town like atmosphere, but its time is gone now. With the city being so rightly placed with hill stations, holiday destinations, numerous forts all around and such rich art and culture hubs, it has great potential for tourism industry. But again, there need to be steps taken to ensure that the city maintains it's originality in terms all that it has been known for.