Infrastructure in Bangalore - Development After Independence

Development After Independence

After Indian independence in 1947, the two municipalities of the cantonment and Bangalore town were united under the Bangalore Municipal Corporation Act LXIX (1949) to form a single municipality for the city — the Bangalore City Corporation (BCC). The new corporation consisted of 50 wards and 75 councillors. The first elections to the BCC under adult franchise were held in December 1950, with Congress party candidate R. Anantharaman elected as first mayor of independent Bangalore. The needs of a growing city led to the rapid growth of civic bodies in the city. The BDA Act of 1976 reconstituted and reorganized the City Improvement Trust Board to form the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA), whose objective was to ensure proper planning and development of the metropolitan area. Bangalore's city layout today has various types of "growth poles", consisting of Markets — K.R. Market, Malleshwaram, Magadi Road, Ulsoor and others, Commercial Centres — Gandhi Bazaar, MG Road, Brigade Road, Commercial streets among others, Industrial layouts — Electronics City, Bharat Electronics Limited layout and HAL Layout, and other socio-economic precursors — Hospitals (Mallya, Bowring and Lady Curson, Vanivilas) and areas of religious and ethnic concentration.

The Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) was constituted in 1968 to supply water to the city and to provide for the disposal of sewage. The Karnataka Electricity Board (KEB) was formed in 1957. Losses in revenues through the mid 1980s and 1990s prompted the Karnataka Legislature to pass the Karnataka Electricity Reforms Act in 1999, which corporatised the KEB into the Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited (KPTCL), with the distribution of Bangalore division vested with the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Limited (BESCOM), which caters to 2.1 million customers in the Bangalore metropolitan area. To cater to the electricity needs of a growing population, BESCOM has sought to commission 11 additional 66/11 KV substations. Over 4,000 distribution transformer centres were added. One survey indicates that 94% of citizens were satisfied with BESCOM's performance. However, Bangalore continues to experience residential and industrial power outages ("load shedding") for as long as 2 to 4 hours a day, while its contemporaries such as Chennai and Hyderabad remain largely free of such outages.

The Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) was separated from the parent Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation through private sector investment, first making a profit of Rs. 267 million (US$ 5.6 million in 2001-2002. As of 2001, the company operated close to 3000 regular and Pushpak busses and services 2.8 million customers daily. The Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF), a private-public partnership enterprise, was established during the S. M. Krishna administration to coordinate civic improvement and development activities with the BDA and BMP. The BATF, along with other civic bodies identified ten junctions and roads for upgrade and improvement, including the Bannerghatta Ring Road junction, Toll gate junction and the Airport Inner Ring Road Junction.

Under the leadership of Sir Mirza Ismail, Diwan of Mysore, the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), a public sector undertaking was established in Bangalore for the purposes of research and development of fighter aircraft in the 1940s. The HAL operated an airport for test-flights. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) obtained a small piece of land, known as Civil Enclave for the construction of a civil airport terminal in the HAL airport for handling peak-hour traffic of 300 passengers. By 1991, peak-hour traffic to Bangalore had increased to 1,800 passengers, making HAL the fourth busiest airport in the country by 2004. When a tender was issued in 1991 by the Government of Karnataka for the construction of the Bangalore International Airport, HAL decided to discontinue civil aviation service. This led to a prolonged three way tussle for operational ownership between the HAL, the Government of Karnataka. Construction of the Bangalore International Airport (BIAL) was repeatedly delayed due to a lack of agreement between successive administrations and the private consortium over operational ownership of the international airport and the status of HAL airport upon the completion of construction of the international airport. Clearance for the construction of the US$ 288 million airport was eventually granted in June 2004. The major stakeholders of this project include Siemens, Zurich Airport, Larsen and Tubro consortium, Airports Authority of India and Karnataka State Investment and Industrial Development Corporation. Construction work on the airport began in March 2005.

Bangalore's road network exceeds 3,000 km (1,800 mi) and consists of ring roads, arterial roads, sub-arterial roads and residential streets. The city road network is mainly radial, converging in the centre. The main roads of Bangalore coming into the city include Bellary Road in the north, Tumkur Road and Mysore Road in the west, Kanakpura Road, Bannerghatta Road and Hosur Road in the south and Airport Road and Old Madras Road in the east. Many of Bangalore's erstwhile colonial and town streets were developed into commercial and entertainment areas after independence. The B.V.K Iyengar Road became the retail hub of Bangalore, while MG Road, Commercial Street and Brigade Road became important shopping, recreation and corporate areas. Consequently, traffic increased exponentially, especially on MG Road, which forms the main artery for the city's east-west traffic. But for MG Road, other roads in and around the erstwhile Parade Ground remain narrow, winding roads. Bangalore's vehicular traffic has increased manifold, with 1.6 million registered vehicles in the city — the second highest for an Indian city, after New Delhi. The maintenance and construction of roads to address the growing traffic in the city has been a challenge to the BDA and the BMP. Development of the city road infrastructure has revolved around imposing one-way traffic in certain areas, improving traffic flow in junctions, constructing ring roads, bridges, floyers and other grade separators. Six high volume junctions were identified for improvements, through a public-private partnership involving corporate sponsors and various state government agencies, such as the Siddapur Road and Hosur Road junction, sponsored by Infosys and the Airport Road and Intermediate Ring Road junction sponsored by the TATAs. Flyovers were constructed in the city to ease traffic congestion. Newer flyovers were planned for the city for 2006 and beyond The construction of flyovers near the Domlur sector was delayed twice while the flyover near the Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology on Bannerghatta Road was also delayed.

Some of the flyovers and one-ways mitigated the traffic situation moderately, however the volume of traffic continues to grow at an annual rate of between 7-10%. Roads near Airport Road and the residential areas in Koramangala were dug up for renovation but have remained in this state for over two years. The Outer Ring Road was initially constructed to ease truck congestion in the city, however the growth of suburbs reduced the positive impact of the ring road. Bangalore Development Authority is laying additional lanes on many of the major roads around Bangalore. The Peripheral Ring Road, expected to be completed in 2007, is designed to be concentric to the Outer Ring Road and covers 108.9 km. The Hosur Road, which connects Bangalore to the Electronics City, is heavily congested and is part of the National Highway (NH7), therefore witnesses heavy truck traffic as well.

Rapid population growth in Bangalore was brought about by the IT and other associated industries, leding to an increase in the vehicular population to about 1.5 million, with an annual growth rate of 7-10%. Bangalore's infrastructural woes have led to protests by students and IT workers in the city. In July 2004 Wipro's CEO Azim Premji threatened to pull his company out of the city unless there was a drastic improvement in infrastructure over the next few years, stating "We do not see the situation (state of Bangalore's infrastructure) improving in the near future". Ideological clashes between the city's IT moguls, who demand an addressal of the infrastructural problems of the city, and the successive state governments, whose electoral base is primarily rural Karnataka's agricultural workers, are common In 2005, however, the Central and State Governments allocated sizeable funding from their annual budgets towards the improvement of Bangalore's infrastructure.