Hyderabad: Old City, Twin Cities, Tri-City, and Future City ..... Genesis and Evolution of Business Chains : Vanam Jwala Narasimha Rao

 Hyderabad: Old City, Twin Cities, 

Tri-City, and Future City

Genesis and Evolution of Business Chains

Vanam Jwala Narasimha Rao

(10-09-2025)

As I drive in the streets of 434-year-old Hyderabad City, where I have been living for over six decades (Since 1962), I am awe struck and amazed at the scale of development with high rise glass towers, traffic ridden flyovers crisscrossing city’s skyline, gigantic malls, multiplexes dazzling with global luster, huge structured Hotels and Hospitals, dazzling beauty parlors, bars etc. emanating invisible, constant, unsettling radiation everywhere. This undeniable and impressive development often leaves me dumbfounded, while also making me reminisce the ‘Hyderabad Special Evening Showers’ that once brought relief and fragrance to the soil, the gentle breezes that caressed, the compulsion requiring to cover with thick bedsheets in the nights to protect against cold weather etc.

The streets echo not simplicity of life but ugly consumerism, where absence of modest provision stores, cart hotels, vegetable shops etc. are strikingly visible. An affordable tailor or barber, shoe repairer, duplicate key maker etc. is impossible to find. A small vegetable shop run by a family with seasonal produce disappeared. It is replaced by a sprawling chain of retail outlets, including so called farmer-friendly Rythu bazaars. An ordinary eatery was metamorphosed into global network of luxury hotel. This paradox dazzles, devastates, and forces to rethink on development. 

The shopping world revolves around Grandeur Malls such as, Sarath City Capital, GVK One, Forum Sujana, Inorbit, City Centre, Hyderabad Central etc. housing multiplexes like PVR, INOX, AMB etc. They represent the culmination of chains, a single roof under which countless outlets of global and national brands operate. Touring talkies and single-screen theater that united neighborhoods, are replaced by multiplex chains. Thus, an organized chain silences small livelihoods, commodifies human needs, causes slow death of smaller, independent shops, roadside markets, and family businesses.    

In Healthcare the growth of hospital chains has converted care into commerce. Packages, corporate tie-ups, insurance-linked billing etc. are normal. Clinics, dispensaries, and nursing homes disappeared. Specialty, Super Specialty, and Multi-Super Specialty Medicare such as Apollo, CARE, Yashoda, Gleneagles Global, Continental, Star, AIG etc. dominate the city with chain of multiple branches and extend reach into other states and abroad. A pharmacist-run medical shop, once guiding the community for simple health needs, is now non-existent. Chains often run without qualified pharmacists and offer unscientific discounts.

As part of Education Industry, Coaching Centers like Narayana, Sri Chaitanya, Aakash Institute, Allen Career Institute, FIITJEE, Vibrant Academy, TIME etc. stretching across cities and states, have multiplied into hundreds of outlets. Construction of a house, once handled by an individual mason or small builder, has morphed into a colossus, with builders and developers calculating common area almost equal to actual living spaces. Corporate Entities such as, My Home, Prestige, Lodha, Vasavi, Aditya, Ramky etc. with their high-rise towers that follow the same template in every city, are awesome.

In Hospitality Sector, Business Chains like Taj Group of Hotels, Marriott, Courtyard, Fairfield, IHG, Wyndham, Accor, Oberoi Group form part of a worldwide network. Catering has become branded chains too. UTSAV, an award-winning vegetarian catering service, is one among the many that have brought scale, organization, and branding. MERAGI offers event design and wedding planning across cities, Hyderabad being one of its significant markets. Communication networks like Airtel, Jio and Vodafone bind Hyderabad seamlessly into nationwide and global systems.

Banking too is led by chains of public and private banks with uniform practices. Customers enjoy speed, reach, and global access, notwithstanding the fact that, decisions are driven by algorithms rather than understanding. Fuel stations of Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and HPCL mark every stretch of highway and city corner. Liquor, once sold by a maximum of half-a-dozen small shops, now sees sprawling outlets such as Tonique (recently closed), Espirito in Inorbit Mall, JNV Liquors Malls, SS Liquor Mall etc. offer the widest possible range.  

The impulse to create chains of businesses, springs from a need that is both practical and aspirational. At its core, the desire to multiply success, to ensure continuity of standards, and to meet a growing market across geographies transforms a lone establishment into chain. Even centuries ago, there were multiple business outlets. Families that traded in spices established several shops, strategically placed along key ports, caravansaries, or market towns. These families became anchors of community life, shaping norms of trust, lending, hospitality, and dispute settlement. From such an honest genesis of chains, their speedy evolution has been like Alwin Toffler’s ‘Future Shock,’ a condition where individuals struggle to adapt to the overwhelming pace of life.

Managerial hierarchies, investor backing, and aggressive strategies transformed the chain as an impersonal, system-driven engine of growth. Chains which confined within national boundaries were compelled to adapt to cross-border demands. Customer reviews, social media conversations, rise of start-up culture have become challenges of Chains. Despite Chains reshaping economies and social relations by bringing scale, efficiency, uniformity, and aspiration, they may weaken personal bonds, erase local diversity, and foster a culture where value is measured more in transactions than in relationships. Eventually, few chains consciously began to adapt to local cultures, introducing local flavor menus in international restaurants.

The idea of a chain is not confined to markets and businesses alone; it quietly seeps into the very structure of governance and politics. What once began as the humble panchayat meeting under a tree or the small gathering of townsfolk to resolve disputes has, over time, transformed into chains of institutions. Governance itself today is a complex chain, each link bound to another, local bodies to state governments, state governments to the center, and the center to global commitments. Politics, too, is not immune. In bureaucracy, the chain is most visible in the hierarchy itself. At the global level, nations are no longer islands but links in an intricate global chain. The logic of the chain reflects both necessity and vulnerability.

Hyderabad, founded 434 years ago, on the banks of the Musi, began as a compact city of a few dozen square kilometers with its population limited to a few lakhs, bustling around Charminar, Chow Mahalla, and the bazaars of the walled town. When I first stepped in, sixty-three years ago, it had already grown into a modest capital where the old city was joined by Secunderabad, the cantonment, and new residential colonies, together forming the ‘Twin Cities’ spread over roughly 175 square kilometers with a population nearing a million.

Broad roads, familiar faces, and a leisurely pace still defined life. Over time, Cyberabad rose with HITEC City and Gachibowli, turning the capital into a ‘Tri-City’ of over 650 Square Kilometers under GHMC limits, hosting nearly one crore people. HMDA covering more than 7000 Square Kilometers, encompassing the metropolitan region, including mandals, and villages surrounding the city, Hyderabad is preparing itself as a ‘Future City’ that includes HYDRA limits, and a specific development Project envisioned as an ultramodern, sustainable, and net-zero carbon city. The Secretariat as an emblem of this transformation, reflects the mega-metropolis of industry, education, health, IT, and culture.

This gradual expansion of geography and population has been both rational and inevitable. A city that once managed small neighborhoods now governs global aspirations. From a medieval capital of minarets to a national hub of IT corridors and aerospace parks, Hyderabad’s journey reflects the continuity of vision carried forward by successive governments, each adding layers of growth. Despite the visible excesses of malls, multiplexes, and towers, I cannot deny that this development was indispensable.

Without it, Hyderabad would not have sustained its exploding population, nor could it have emerged as one of India’s foremost global cities. What was once a city of evening showers and quiet bazaars is today a ‘Tri-City’ aspiring to be a ‘Future City’ - resilient, expansive, and inclusive, a place where my amazement and my silent tears coexist.