After 10 years of assurances and false starts, the city’s largest business park is seeing some progress.
In February this year, months before the State Assembly elections, the foundation stone was laid for the ₹505-crore Bengaluru Signature Business Park and the ₹440-crore International Convention Centre adjacent to the Kempegowda International Airport. This seemed to be the stepping stone towards fruition of the private-public-partnership project that was first touted when the airport was commissioned in 2008.
However, there was a hitch: no concessionaire was coming forward to the ambitious project as the 407-acre plot was hard to reach. The proposed park is separated from National Highway 44 by a railway line. There is no direct connectivity to the highway.
“We did have bidders, but connectivity was the issue as there was little access to the park. We have already talked to National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) about establishing trunk connectivity. Once the infrastructure is in place, investors will start coming forward,” said Gunjan Krishna, Managing Director, Karnataka State Industrial Investment and Development Corporation (KSIIDC), which is executing the project.
The trunk infrastructure, according to the conceptual plan submitted to the Ministry of Environment and Forests earlier this year, states that the business park will have a direct access flyover from the main road and access to the airport. The development of the infrastructure will take place within two years, states the plan. “There will be visible work by next year,” said Ms. Krishna.
About the project
Apart from the convention centre, which will come up on 34 acres and seat more than 6,000 people, the business park will see the setting up of corporate offices, parks, a mall, a retail district, theme parks, design and culture spaces, cultural museum, research and development centres in over 247.13 acres. The plan was to develop the area over the next 30 years.
The project was kept in abeyance for over a decade owing to the downturn in investor sentiment following the 2008 recession, apart from other factors. However, it has found prime position in nearly every global investor’s meet since.
