If you follow all the announcements made by the State government for Bengaluru over the last one year, one may be under the impression that huge investments are being made on the city’s infrastructure and big-ticket projects are in the pipeline — from a network of 75-km-long elevated corridors to the peripheral ring road and a steel flyover on the road leading to the airport.
But a closer examination of claims on these projects reveal that none in even close to a take off. None of these projects has received any private funding, while the government has indicated that it is not able to fund them from the coffers too. At least two projects are stuck as Japan International Cooperative Agency is yet to grant loans. Peripheral ring road project, pending for over a decade now, has also failed to take off.
For instance, the network of elevated corridors alone costs over Rs. 20,000 crore, which Minister K.J. George says will be completely funded by the private sector and will be tolled. While the detailed project report (DPR) is being prepared, the project failed to attract any investment in this year’s Invest Karnataka meet. “There was even a proposal to build a network of underground tunnels by a Malaysian firm championed by the government. It was one of the most stupid projects that only promoted private transport. Thankfully, it was dropped,” said urban commute expert Sanjeev V. Dyamannavar.
Lack of focus on public transport has been a common criticism against the city administration this past year. “What is hindering focus on public transport also is that unlike the first two years, we now have separate Ministers for transport and the city, leading to a lack of coordination,” said a former BBMP Commissioner, who did not wish to be named. He added that no investment was being made to increase the BMTC fleet.
The best example of this came when the government opted to stall bus rapid transport system (BRTS) on the Outer Ring Road, which could have been completed in a year, for Namma Metro line in the third phase, which is still on the drawing board. German public bank KuF was willing to fund the BRTS with Rs. 1,000 crore. But it was dropped, and now the Cabinet has approved to explore “innovative finance” options for building a metro line on the busy corridor.
“Instead of spending Rs. 1,350 crore for the steel flyover on Ballari Road, which will only benefit private transport and bring all of the city’s traffic on one corridor, the amount can be used to build a part of the Commuter Rail Service and alternative road to the airport from east Bengaluru to provide more options,” reasoned Mr. Dyamannavar.
“There is a very visible projectification of infra projects in the city. This is not the first time we are seeing this. The city has always been hit by such big-ticket projects which have failed to even take off on the ground. If we review the last decade, the city had a huge list of big-ticket projects discussed but none added yet,” said N.S. Mukunda of the Citizens’ Action Forum.
With less than two years of this government’s tenure to go before the polls, will at least any of these projects ever take off and start work on ground is the moot question.
What could have been completed on ground still in limbo
Almost half a year after announcing TenderSURE work to be taken up in 50 roads in the central business district, it is still on paper. Widening of Hebbal flyover to ease the traffic bottleneck was a project announced in the 2015 budget, but the work is yet to begin. There are at least four flyovers and railway bridges that are stuck owing to land acquisition issues for over two years now. White-topping of 300 junctions announced in the budget is yet to be taken up.
The list of such projects which require no big investments, but could have been completed by now, bringing visible change for citizens, is pretty long.
“What the city administration lacks is project management and monitoring at the micro level. Instead of going for new announcements, the government should concentrate on grassroots level work like rebuilding storm-water drains, which was neglected this year too,” said an urban expert on one of the government panels.
