Now that means you havent seen the areas of actual bangalore but more of its glitzy malls. Quite understandable and same is the case with many "outside" people. But still Bangalore is lot cheaper compared to Delhi and Mumbai for things like housing etc. And with regards to food you can get decent south indian food for as little as 30 rs per meal. The city is full of udupi darshinis and the food you get there is rather tasty and hygenic as well. For food and shelter, Bangalore is way cheaper compared to Mumbai and Delhi.
Movie tickets, yes I concur. It is idiotically priced. The government should put a cap on it just like how TN has for Chennai. But the multiplex lobby wont approve for it. Strange thing to note is inspite of this ridiculously hihg price, theaters are full!. Blame the IT crowd who have more "dispensable" income (I might say i belong to that category). But seriously high movie ticket price should in no way be a deciding factor to quit job.
One important thing is education. The private school that charge here are bloody rip off's. A decent to good private schoold would charge anywhere between 50k to 1 lac INR for nursery/kindergarten tution fees! Now that high ( I dont know the situation in Delhi and Mumbai, but i have heard it's more or less the same; but its definitely less in chennai). The government should intervene and put a cap on this, its high time.
But this thing for DRDO employees is that they can get their kids admitted to KV's ( Kendriya vidyalayas) which are one of the best schools in the country. And they just charge a nominal fees for central government employees.
And with regards to pay, after the 6th pay commission, they have gotten a huge rise. Infact compared to private sector, they get paid more and with some better facilities like schooling for kids etc.
So, IMO, the issue is not with pay/cost of living, but rather with the work culture in organization itself. I have heard that there is lot of politics for promotion and all ( especially caste based politics- not sure about DRDO but the issue exists in most of the central govt offices). And one more deciding factor could be that in central govt offices you wont get much oppurtunity to travel abroad. Now this, in India, is a major deciding factor. People would rather choose a job which has foreign travel even though its paying less than your current job.
