Bengaluru: Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D.K.Shivakumar got his way in the state budget, securing allocations for all his pet projects, including the Rs 40,000 crore tunnel road, double decker and other flyovers and expanding the existing road network in Bengaluru.
Even though Shivakumar’s relations with Chief Minister Siddaramaiah have strained after the deputy CM calling to replace his boss, the budgetary allocations point to the possibility of a temporary truce.
“It reflects the kind of development strategy which is politically determined,” Narendra Pani, political analyst and faculty at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), told ThePrint.
Analysts also argue that it becomes harder for governments to deny or rationalise funds for welfare projects when it is willing to set aside–or at least announce–thousands of crores for large infrastructure projects that no one really asked for.
On Friday, Siddaramaiah said that the government stood guarantee to the Bengaluru city corporation for an amount of Rs 19,000 crore for undertaking the North-South and the East-West corridors (tunnels) at a cost of Rs 40,000 crore. He also increased the yearly grant to the city’s civic body Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) from Rs 3,000 crore to Rs 7,000 crore.
The CM also announced Rs 8,916 crore for the construction of 40.5 km of double-decker flyover, Rs 3,000 crore to expand the road network by another 300 km, and Rs 1,800 crore for 21 schemes to strengthen ‘Brand Bengaluru’.
ThePrint had reported in February how Shivakumar had pushed for bills like the one on greater Bengaluru authority and his big-ticket infrastructure projects to decongest India’s IT capital that has become the template of urban ruin.
Shivakumar, the minister in-charge of Bengaluru development, hopes to resolve teething issues of the state capital and be seen as its saviour, elevate his image, and help his case to be made the next chief minister of Karnataka.
One senior government official said that Shivakumar being given what he wants is the “political reading” into the allocations but it was more for Bengaluru.
Like in any other Indian metropolis gasping for space as people migrate for better education and employment opportunities, Bengaluru faces far more pronounced challenges as it is home to nearly a quarter of Karnataka’s population squeezed into just around 700 sq km.
Successive governments have focused all its energies in Bengaluru given its status as the state’s growth engine, adding to the growing regional disparity and imbalance growth in the southern state.
The Congress government, Shivakumar in particular, is pushing to expand Bengaluru to include Ramanagara and other peripheral regions that is likely to double the city’s boundaries to over 1,400 sq km.
Then, there is a race for the construction of a second airport inside the city as any delay is expected to give Tamil Nadu a chance to capitalise on catering to a growing stream of air travellers and cargo handling.
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‘Past record not encouraging’
Keeping aside the politics of the projects, urban planning experts and analysts question if the BBMP is even qualified or equipped to handle such projects.
V.Ravichandar, urban infrastructure expert, says that arguments about the kind of projects sanctioned aside, there are larger questions.
“The allocation is over 100 percent over normal years as annual grants have more than doubled from Rs 3,000 crore to Rs 7,000 crore. The question is does the system have the institutional capacity to execute projects that are twice the scale of the existing work they do,” Ravichandar told ThePrint.
Over the years, Bengaluru has been in news for the wrong reasons—poor infrastructure, pothole laden roads, water-logging, foaming and toxic lakes and traffic congestion which the city’s administrators have tried to solve by, well, opting for more construction that is perpetually delayed.
Significant delays in completing projects meant to decongest the city like the metro, flyovers, road widening and others are, ironically, doing the exact opposite.
Between 2013 and 2023, the Bengaluru city corporation spent Rs 43,600 crore of which nearly Rs 25,000 crore was earmarked for ‘improvement’, ‘resurfacing’, ‘relaying’, or ‘asphalting’ roads, data from the BBMP shows.
The civic body has spent around Rs 25,000 crore just on road-related infrastructure in the last 10 years, of which nearly Rs 200 crore just for covering potholes, according to the BBMP data.
“Most of these projects are meant as money-making schemes. They end up saddling the city with long-drawn projects lasting 10-15 years,” another urban infrastructure expert told ThePrint.
“I believe that there is at least 30-40 percent pilferage. Pilferage is by way of payment; all the way to political masters to the engineers. If nearly 40 percent of the money is not going to the specified work, then quality drops,” R.K.Mishra, urban planner and a member of Karnataka Deputy CM’s Bengaluru Infrastructure team, earlier told ThePrint.
“If you are lucky, then 50 percent goes towards the roads,” he asserted.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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