“Bangalore’s growth is definitely solid — we have dried up all the lakes and the entire city is set in concrete,” said Vivek Kulkarni on Thursday. This set the tone for the discussion on the future of Bangalore’s growth.
The problem is that there is no planning. “The government is only reacting to growth in the city rather than planning proactively,” said Ram Chandani, deputy MD (South India), CB Richard Ellis. Citing the example of the outer ring roads, he said: “The construction of underpasses, flyovers, etc should have been done in the early 2000s, when the IT sector was being set up,” he said.
Many agencies
The problem is the lack of a singular planning agency to visualise and chart the city’s growth. “Power planning, water planning, infrastructure and road planning are done by different agencies that do not coordinate with each other,” said Hariprasad Hegde, global head (operations), Wipro Technologies.
Another problem is the long-term plans are not insulated from political interference. Panellists said even plans have a limited shelf life and by the time they are implemented, they do not have the capacity to handle the surge in growth. “The comprehensive development plan will be revisited every 10 years. But this is not enough,” said Ravindra Pai, manager, Century Real Estate. “A business plan is usually planned for five years, but they are revisited every year to make sure that we are able to incorporate changes that have happened over the last one year,” he said.
Corporates lamented that the mayor neither had vision nor the educational background to plan the city’s growth. They also addressed the issue of land scarcity. Rules have to be liberalised and debated in the public domain.
And they should not be left to the discretion of politicians, added Kulkarni.
