The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has listed 89 tech parks to be created or expanded in Bengaluru, eyeing a major infrastructure push to attract foreign and domestic investments.
The list is timed just ahead of the November 19-21 Bengaluru Tech Summit 2024. The announcement has boosted the hopes of businesses and politicians who are tickled pink at the prospect of more investments attracted by so many tech parks—considered the biggest such initiative.
However, let’s not miss the citizens’ point. Bengaluru, which enjoys sobriquets like the IT or science capital of India, is already bursting at its seams—desperately stressed in terms of transport and infrastructure facilities.
The fact that all these tech parks are within city limits would not help that reality. A major concern is the plan would add substantially to the city’s booming population and rapidly rising number of vehicles already jostling amid inadequate road space.
As of September 2024, Bengaluru had 1.20 crore vehicles—more than 1,100 cars per kilometre of road. Urban planners have been screaming for years that the solution to decongest Bengaluru is to establish satellite towns around the city teeming with 1.40 crore people.
These satellite towns can allow a proliferation of tech parks with live-work-play spaces, and act as magnets to decongest Bengaluru. Unfortunately, what is being unravelled is the very opposite of what has been advocated as a smarter solution.
Pre-1980s Bangalore lacked any semblance of city planning, just as Bengaluru does now. It was all of a sudden that a big town like Bangalore transformed into a mega city like Bengaluru.
Now, plans perceived as solutions—like underground tunnel roads to decongest on-surface ones—keep popping up after the city witnessed a flyover boom. The realisation that all these measures are failing—or will fail—to decongest is only beginning to dawn now.
Adding road space to accommodate more vehicles would only add to the congestion in a city that is infamous for its lack of traffic discipline.
The powers that be need to realise what Bengaluru needs is not an infra boost that attracts investments and people, but credible solutions to limit population growth so that the existing infrastructure is adequate for future sustenance.