washington californias bay area home to the tech enclave famously known as silicon valley is bristling at reports that it has been overtaken by upstart bangalore as the worlds largest employer of techiesnot so say valley gurus not only does the area employ far more than 160000 techies that bangalore boasts of but the valley is creating jobs at the same pace it did during the boom years of 19981999the flap arose after a karnataka government official claimed recently that bangalore has already overtaken silicon valley in the number of tech jobs it hosted a number he projected would exceed 200000 between 2004 and 2005but figures from californias state government employment development department edd estimate the number of technology workers in just santa clara county which is the heart of silicon valley at 175100 as of june 2004the bay area is home to eight other counties including 47 cities and some counties like san mateo and san francisco though not as thick with techies as santa clara still employ tens of thousands of tech workers in all more than a million people are said to work in technology and related fields in the bay areasilicon valley is not in danger of losing its stature as a tech leader and it can benefit from competition overseas sam haddad chairman of the silicon valley engineering hall of fame and a consulting professor at stanford university told cnet news adding that the region is seeing new growth in areas such as nanotechnology and beginning to reinvent itselfin fact the figures suggest that the 175100 tech workers in santa clara are employed exclusively in tech fields such as computer design telecommunications internet service providers websearch portals data processing etc whereas bangalores definition of tech workers is far looser and includes those working in call centers and other bpo related activitieseven indian techies working here scoffed at the idea that bangalore may be overtaking silicon valley sure thing if you count every electrician and plumber in bangalore a consultant who preferred not to be named saidof course it is another matter than bay area is home to some 250000 indians about 100000 of whom are believed to be techies in recent months up to 35000 indian techies are believed to have returned to india or have jobs that requires them to commute periodically between the united states and india still bangalores bragging seems as unwarranted as the now discredited india shining shibboleth given the citys dismal infrastructure that is already causing home grown companies to look at other pastures