Mohali's tech rise: From satellite town to digital powerhouse
Once a quiet satellite town of Chandigarh, Mohali is now a rising IT and (information technology enabled services) ITeS hub, backed by policy, investment, and talent. The city is now reaping the benefits of a movement that started in 2018 when a committee led by veteran economist Montek Singh Ahluwalia highlighted start-ups as job creators. Punjab's new IT policy targeting 55,000 jobs while offering tax incentives, and world-class infrastructure, has given another big push to this digital drive.
Ashish Mehta, COO of Innovation Mission Punjab (IMP), a state-supported public-private initiative conceptualised in 2020, says, 'One start-up can generate 10 jobs'. With Rs 10 crore in state funding, IMP has facilitated Rs 33 crore in start-up investment and created 4,000–5,000 jobs in the last three years, he adds.
Adding to the momentum, the Centre has committed $1.2 billion to upgrade Mohali's Semi-Conductor Laboratory (SCL), an autonomous MeitY body led by Dr Kamaljeet Singh, signalling strong national backing for Mohali's high-tech ambitions.
Start-ups, scale and social impact
Global outsourcing firm TaskUs, blockchain pioneer Antier, AI road-safety innovator Road Athena, and digital services company QORWeb are among the plethora of companies redefining the start-up narrative in the city.
'We call ourselves disruptors in the outsourcing market,' says Sapna Bhambani, India head of TaskUs, which now employs over 4,000 people in Mohali, the company's second-largest India site.
Bhambani says cities like Mohali offer a unique mix of ambition, humility and opportunity. 'We're not here just to run an operation, we're here to build people. Mohali gives us that canvas.'
For Antier, which began operations in 2004 and now employs over 700 people, Mohali offered the right ecosystem from the start. 'We didn't have to be in Bengaluru or Hyderabad to build world-class blockchain products,' says CEO Vikram Singh. 'What we had was clarity of vision, deep execution, and a hunger to build from where we belonged.'
Singh, who is self-taught and not a college graduate, is often cited by IMP as a symbol of Mohali's grassroots ambition. 'Stories like his show the power of local determination,' an IMP representative says.
Start-ups like Road Athena have shown what's possible with the right support. The AI-based road condition and safety platform grew over 500 per cent year-on-year, bagging accolades from NASSCOM and a World Bank showcase. 'They came to us at MVP stage,' IMP notes. 'Now they've raised Rs 2 crore under the HPCL programme.'
'We didn't need Silicon Valley to build what we're building,' says Road Athena's co-founder Prerna Kalra. 'We needed engineers who could solve local problems, and a city that understood ambition. Mohali gave us both.'
QORWeb co-founder Manpreet Singh, who started his digital marketing firm with a single desktop, now has a global client base. 'People used to think talent only came from metros. Mohali just needed to be seen,' he says.
Infrastructure that delivers
Mohali now boasts infrastructure that rivals India's biggest tech centres. The Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) Mohali facility features a Tier-III data centre with 10,000 sq ft server space and 160-rack capacity. In the financial year 2020–2021, the region exported IT/ITeS services worth Rs 1,471 crore to clients across the US, Canada, Norway and Australia.
Facilities like Quark City, BESTECH Towers, and the upcoming IT city project have made plug-and-play workspaces easily accessible.
For Road Athena, having a local data centre made a tangible difference. 'We handle massive volumes of video and image data. Being close to the infrastructure cut our cloud costs and sped up analysis,' Kalra says.
Talent that transforms
The city's rise is also powered by a strong talent pipeline. Institutions like IIT Ropar, IISER, Panjab University, PEC, Chitkara and Chandigarh University have fed the region with engineers trained in AI, blockchain, full-stack development and more.
'We've trained hundreds of engineers from Tier-2 and Tier-3 backgrounds, they're now leading blockchain deployments worldwide,' says Antier's Vikram Singh.
Manpreet Singh of QORWeb adds, 'I've trained people who had zero tech background. Today they're leading projects for US clients. That's the real story of Mohali, it's not just producing talent, it's transforming lives.'
Through its PINE (Punjab Innovation and Networking Ecosystem) platform, IMP connects start-ups with 27 incubators and facilitates prototyping, 3D printing and industry-academia collaborations. Its Campus Ambassador Programme reaches over 70 colleges, embedding entrepreneurship into the curriculum.
'There's no dearth of capability here,' says Bhambani of TaskUs. 'We've been able to build high-performing teams from scratch. People just needed a platform that believed in them.'
The road ahead
'In the last three years, we've worked with over 6,000 entrepreneurs and changed the orbit of more than 1,000 start-ups,' says IMP's Mehta. 'There's an ecosystem here. Everyone is building something. Everyone wants to stay.'
As India's digital economy decentralises, Mohali may no longer be an alternative. It may just be the advantage.
The author is an intern with The Indian Express
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