Broken infrastructure, absence of civic body hurting Bengaluru’s image, say industry stakeholders

A renewed debate on issue comes in the wake of a tweet by a start-up founder, Ravish Naresh, highlighting the poor infrastructure in Bengaluru

No government in the last two decades could keep the promises on Bengaluru’s infrastructure, lament various industry representatives | Photo Credit: file photo

No government in the last two decades could keep the promises on Bengaluru’s infrastructure, and unfortunately, the city currently does not even have a proper local administration, lament various industry representatives.

A renewed debate on the issue comes in the wake of a tweet by a start-up founder, Ravish Naresh, highlighting the poor infrastructure in Bengaluru. Following this, Telangana Industry and Commerce and IT Minister K.T. Rama Rao had tweeted inviting start-ups in Bengaluru to move to Hyderabad.

Underlining the need for better infrastructure, V. Balakrishnan, co-founder, Exfinity Venture Partners, an early-stage VC fund and former CFO at Infosys, said that over the years, the city infrastructure has only gone from bad to worse. BBMP has an annual budget of over ₹10,000 crore but it is not resulting in any meaningful upgrade of city infrastructure.

“We don’t have an elected BBMP council for some time now for citizens to hold someone responsible. We badly need a single agency which will co-ordinate and execute all development activities in the city in a coherent manner. Also, we need a Mayor who can be accountable to citizens,” insisted Mr. Balakrishnan.

Coming heavily on the failure of the local administration, T.V. Mohandas Pai, co-founder of VC firm Aarin Capital and also Chief Advisor to the Manipal Education and Medical Group said that Bengaluru’s current infrastructure was much below what was needed for a global city.

“The main reason is that the governance model for the city is broken. BBMP is a corrupt, broken entity with no capacity to improve Bengaluru. It is short of people and short of funds. Drastic action is needed,” he argued.

Mr. Balakrishnan pointed to the utter lack of co-ordination between civic agencies and most projects getting extended way beyond timelines for completion. “Now with the pandemic behind us and people starting commuting to offices, the traffic situation has become worse,” according to Mr. Balakrishnana.

Avinash Vashistha, former Chairman and CEO for Accenture (India) and Chairman, Tholons Inc., a global strategy, technology and investment company, was of the opinion that Bengaluru has to provide much more to benchmark at international levels.

“The city needs to focus more on inter-city trains, subways, and connectivity to the airport. The city is under pressure and it is finding it tough to keep pace with the population growth,” he said.

Gilbert Millicent Nathan, Associate Vice President, Corporate Affairs, Huawei Technologies, underlined the connectivity issues in the city. For instance, many areas such as K.R. Puram, Tin Factory, Silk Board Junction etc. are in bad shape and congested. Metro work has come to a halt in Whitefield and Mahadevapura areas. The elevated corridor project in Koramangala has been facing several issues and the government is looking for a new tender, he pointed out.

“Half of our roads in Bengaluru are either not done or half done. The city needs to decongest with an immediate priority and invest in civic and social infrastructure in secondary cities of the state,” Mr. Nathan argued.