Regional Industrial Policies Driving Peri-urban Dynamics in Hyderabad, India

International audienceBetween 1995 and 2004, regional political elites in Andhra Pradesh sought to transform greater Hyderabad into a dynamic economic region oriented toward global growth sectors. Inspired by the infrastructure-led growth model, a dominant strategy consisted in fitting out, via public-private partnerships, specialised business/technology parks and attracting investment through carefully designed industrial policies. This study focuses on regional IT policies, with attention to the strategic use of peri-urban space and examines the construction of HITEC City and other large-scale projects. Using a multi-level perspective, the Hyderabad case is contextualised in relation to India's recent adoption of economic reforms. Recent lit- erature on global city-regions and the development of global capitalism provides a macro framework for analysing the role of a provincial government both in initiating and driving industrial and urban dynamics. State re-scaling or re-territorialisation in particular is a compel- ling concept for interpreting the strategies examined here, which aim to promote the compet- itive advantages of Hyderabad in global economic processes by adapting institutional and regulatory infrastructures. At the micro level, the analysis focuses on how policies are played out in peri-urban spaces, and the implications for urban governance are discussed. Although economic strategies have been fairly successful, top-down decision-making practices have effec- tively excluded many local actors from the policy process, and the creation of special purpose enclaves in suburban areas has weakened prospects for the development of governance institutions at the metropolitan scale