The road to progress and sustainability should be preceded by systematic civic and town planning so that tier 2 cities earmarked to be developed as industrial or technology hubs do not get burdened in future – like Bengaluru did – after the state begins its earnest march ahead.
The state’s march ahead got a boost on Thursday when Karnataka government initiated a series of policies to hoist the state’s reputation as a technology and industrial hub.
The state government approved, among others, the Karnataka Information Technology Policy (KITP) 2025-2030 with a total financial outflow of Rs 967.12 crore and the Karnataka Space Technology Policy (KSTP) 2025-30.
It also sanctioned Centres of Excellence (CoEs) for artificial intelligence (AI) and computing, and for defence technology and industry at IIT-Dharwad under the Local Economy Accelerator Program (LEAP) at Rs 18 crore each.
The KITP 2025-2030 looks at enhancing the contribution of the state’s gross value added from 26% to 36% through an increase in software exports from Rs 4.09 lakh crore to Rs 11.5 lakh crore by 2030.
This could reinforce Karnataka’s leadership in global tech markets. The policy expects to attract investments in information technology with a focus on AI and other emerging technologies, and is looking away from Bengaluru at cities like Mysuru, Mangaluru, Hubballi-Dharwad-Belagavi, Tumakuru, Kalaburagi and Shivamogga. The obvious intention of this is to create a statewide future-ready digital network.
The KITP 2025-2030 promotes emerging technologies like AI, blockchain, quantum computing, green IT and advanced cybersecurity. It aims to integrate AI seamlessly with Karnataka’s already dominant IT sector, positioning the state as an ‘AI-native’ destination to unlock new economic opportunities, drive innovation and enhance public service delivery.
The plan involves launching a dedicated ‘Women in Global Tech Missions Fellowship’ to train 1,000 mid-career women tech professionals and facilitating re-entry of industry veterans and experts returning from global roles to mentor startups or lead domestic R&D/product teams.
The KSTP 2025-30 will support training and skill development of 50,000 young professionals and students to create a highly skilled workforce, employable by the global and domestic space sector and act as the prime moving force for agglomeration of space industries in Karnataka.
This is expected to attract $3 billion in investments from global and domestic space sectors and support the emerging ecosystem to seal the state’s numero uno position to make it the prime destination for space technology in the country by holding 50% of the national market share and carve out 5% of the global market share.
Inevitably – and optimistically speaking – if the policies and plans achieve their objectives, there is bound to be a massive workforce shift to several locations – mainly tier 2 cities – beyond Bengaluru.
But, don’t we all know what happened to Bengaluru from the mid-1980s onwards when investments started flowing into the city, riding on the IT boom, to end up in the mess it is in today? While investment flowed in, and population influx – pursuing livelihood and enjoying the city’s then salubrious climate – reached its peak, Bengaluru started bursting at its seams.
Growth was many times faster than infrastructure could keep up with. Pressure on infrastructure expressed through traffic congestion, widespread civic indiscipline, poor road management, and ever-increasing urban mobility challenges. That was compounded by corrupt practices within the civic machinery that allowed rampant building violations and encroachments, which cramped Bengaluru into its present-day pulverized condition.
Bengaluru’s agonizing phase saw its denizens encountering suggestions ranging from a network of flyovers, peripheral roads to a labyrinth of underground tunnel roads – all desperately seeking solutions to reduce the burden on what has turned into a mega city much beyond its sustainable limits.
While the new policies rightly aim to place the state on a trajectory of growth and prosperity, the focus clearly is on tier 2 and 3 cities. In such a scenario, Bengaluru will have a crucial role to play – holding itself up as a picture of chaos as a lesson to be learnt on what can happen if only investments and growth are focused on without paying attention to proper planning, and ignoring its impact on prevailing infrastructure. That is something that the government and the respective civic authorities in the two-tier cities earmarked for investment and growth need to look at closely, and learn.
Those at the helm of the state government, the Urban Development Department, and the civic authorities and experts in the respective cities beyond Bengaluru need to nurture a foresight that will see the cities accommodating the growth, rather than suffer like Bengaluru. They need to wake up to the fact that one Bengaluru is more than a handful, while multiple Bengaluru-like chaotic cities in Karnataka would be catastrophic for the future growth and prosperity of the state itself.