Dear Editor of Economic Times:
This has reference to the above mentioned op-ed by Sriharsha Majety in today’s Economic Times.
My company does a lot of work for western customers. Accordingly, we work on multiple timezones. When I was looking out for office space, I told landlords and brokers that I needed a place that stayed open till late, if not 24/7. But none of them could understand why anybody would need to work beyond 6:30PM!
Night Time Economy is not only a good driver of boosting economy as the author says but it’s a fairly basic requirement for IT, BPO, KPO and many knowledge industries.
If there’s one blemish in the article, it’s in the numbers. For example, it says that the Top 10 cities contribute US$ 500 billion to the $3 trillion GDP of India. That’s a huge underestimate. When I added the GDP of the top 10 cities featured in your sister publication IndiaTimes (https://www.indiatimes.com/trending/social-relevance/top-10-richest-cities-in-india-2021-552132.html), I arrived at a total of $1.255 trillion, which is more than double of the $500B figure mentioned in the article. And the IndiaTimes figures are for 2021, when India’s GDP was less than $3T.
Thanks and Regards.
KETHARAMAN SWAMINATHAN