BENGALURU: The BBMP, in its efforts to make the city eligible for the Smart City Project, decided to emulate the model followed by cities selected for the project and develop the city’s core areas of Shivajinagar, Gandhinagar, Malleshwaram and Chamrajpet.
Thursday was the last day to register for the project which had eluded the city twice before, even as smaller cities like Davanagere and Tumakuru have already been chosen. The BBMP had claimed the reason for this to be the fact that they were given only 15 days to prepare a presentation.
BBMP Commissioner Manjunath Prasad said when the city had registered the previous time, it had pitched for comprehensive development of Mahadevpura. But seven of the chosen cities had chosen their core areas for development, he added.
“Keeping this in mind, we have prepared a proposal to develop the core areas. Last year, Rs 6,600 crore was available under the Smart City project. But this year, only Rs 500 crore was available while the remaining will have to be borne by the state government through public-private partnership.”
The proposal, which includes development of heritage structures like K R Market and K C General Hospital, will be sent to the office of the Karnataka state Chief Secretary, from where it will be forwarded to the Union government for consideration.