BENGALURU: Transit Oriented Development (TOD), which aims to boost development along the city’s transit corridors, particularly along the Metro Rail and upcoming Suburban Rail corridors, will be the focus of the new Master Plan 2031 proposed for Bengaluru.
The Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) will begin the process of readying the much-delayed Master Plan by calling global tenders for a fresh plan within a week. If everything goes as per schedule, the city will have a new plan to guide it by mid-2023.
The Master Plan (2016-31) was intended to serve as a blueprint to guide the city’s growth and development for the 15 years up to 2031. However, it has already been delayed by five years, and at present, the city still uses the Master Plan 2005-2015. The Netherlands-based consulting firm, Royal Haskoning DHV, had developed the earlier RMP 2031, which was finally scrapped by the BDA by mid-2020.
“We will be calling global tenders to prepare a new Master Plan within a week. It would take us two months to finalise the consulting firm. It would take 18 months for the fresh Master Plan to be in place,” BDA Commissioner MB Rajesh Gowda told TNIE. This includes the time given for public feedback too. Asked if the present plan would become redundant, Gowda said it would be shared with the new agency so that they can incorporate aspects from it in the new plan.
A top government official said that the Floor Area Ratio (FAR) near transit corridors has also been increased in the recent past to ensure vertical development. The Master Plan was supposed to be in place by March 2017, but was finally readied only in November that year. It ran into numerous hurdles -- it received nearly 14,000 objections from the public and the BJP, then in the Opposition, which made allegations of bribery in connection with charges that it intended to take away agricultural land from farmers and hand them over to builders.
A government official said there were major differences among the stakeholders, Directorate of Urban Land Transport, BMRCL and the Urban Development Department over whether the plan should focus on decongesting the Central Business District by creating infrastructure for public in the peripheral areas, or by boosting growth in key areas, including the Metro network and the Suburban Rail corridor by incentivising development in their vicinity.