Bengaluru’s growth story in the period between 2005 and 2015 throws up eye popping figures. If the population grew by a whopping 44.5 per cent, the number of vehicles grew by 140 per cent. The city with a sobriquet of Silicon Valley of the country added nearly 594 square feet of built up area every minute!
Shockingly, successive governments announced a slew of projects, but most remained on paper. Apart from a few underpasses, no new project could decongest the city. Of the four ring roads proposed, none has come up.
In this period, Bengaluru grew three times, with the formation of Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) in 2007.
There are some success stories too: Namma Metro, funded by the Union government; Kempegowda International Airport, completed by a private partner; traffic management centres in BMTC bus stations, funded by the Centre.
Several senior officials told The Hindu that governments have lacked vision and the will to upgrade the crumbling infrastructure.
Also, the State saw six chief ministers in the decade with only B.S. Yeddyurappa and Siddaramaiah enjoying decisive mandates.
Lack of planning and execution
Most projects were announced just to build an image that the government is doing something for the city, says a former BDA commissioner.
“Many projects are motivated by factors other than infrastructure. For instance, take the proposed steel bridges. It would only help the steel sector,” said an official.
A close analysis revealed lack of a feasibility study or financial guarantees to back the announcements.
“Most regimes give priority to short-term projects for which they can claim credit,” said a former bureaucrat who worked in the Urban Development Department.
Land acquisition costs
The biggest hurdle is land acquisition, say bureaucrats. Apart from the resistance to acquisition by land owners, compensation has made the process unviable, especially after enactment of the 2013 Land Acquisition Act, BDA officials say.
For instance, while the cost of building the Peripheral Ring Road is estimated to be Rs. 3,300 crore, the cost of acquiring 1,920 acres is estimated to be Rs. 8,100 crore.
Legal quagmire
Any notification for land acquisition often ends up in court and takes years to resolve, an official pointed out.
This is also because once an agency notifies land for an infrastructure project, it is converted from green belt to construction zone. Subsequently, the changed zone regulation remains evens if the land is denotified or deleted from the acquisition scheme. This impacts the land price.
City benefited in 1995-2005
From 1995 to 2005, Singapore was the model for the city. The decade saw singular focus on improving the infrastructure and coincided with the IT boom.
The Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF), formed with industry captains on board, developed the Self Assessment Property Tax Scheme, took dustbins off roads and introduced door-to-door collection of garbage for the first time.
BDA built the Outer Ring Road (ORR) and Hebbal flyover, along with a host of other flyovers, including the Electronics City flyover and the Sirsi Circle flyover.
Many projects like Peripheral Ring Road and Intermediate Ring Road were conceptualised, but are yet to be realised.
