Apartments on the 45th floor are selling for about three crores, and there's no shortage of takers.
It may be expensive, but young families in Bangalore are determined to live it up. Skyscrapers are shooting up across the city, and a recent survey shows that families who can afford it want the very top floor.
After Mumbai, the city has the maximum skyscrapers in the country - at least 900 of them and many others under construction. To qualify as a skyscraper, a building has to be at least 20 metres or 7-8 floors high.
Apartments on the 45th floor are selling for about three crores, and there's no shortage of takers. But don't race up there just yet.
750 of the high-rises in Bangalore that are currently occupied do not have a No-Objection certificate from the fire safety department, which means there's no guarantee that they have basic safety measures like a sprinkler system or smoke detectors. Usually, a two-month notice is served to these buildings for failing safety checks; as penalty, their electricity supply can be disconnected.
But that's hardly comforting given this: in the entire city, the tallest ladder available for the fire department is 54 metres high. That falls desperately short of a 30-storey building.
In 2010, nine people died in a fire at Carlton Towers, a commercial building seven storeys high. The ladders that firemen arrived at helped reach to some high point and came in handy to rescue several people trapped inside.
Government sources say that an order has been placed to import ladders that run at least 90 metres high from Finland.
"In the event of a fire breaking out, the higher firemen go, the more the air velocity. So we will need sturdy stable ladders. The highest ladder now in the world is in Dubai at 101 metres. We are studying the performance of these ladders before ordering for more because they are very expensive." says Mr Om Prakash, who heads the fire safety department in Karnataka
Also missing: helipads. It is not for luxury, not for people to reach there; it is (needed) for rescue operations." Mr Om Prakash adds. He said high-rises are also being asked to add external elevators - which cost about 10 crores each, a proposal that is being predictably fought by builders in the city.