Karnataka is looking at promoting its tier-2 and 3 cities in the state to reduce the prevailing stress and decongest Bengaluru. ‘Beyond Bengaluru’, the strategic flagship initiative of the Karnataka government spearheaded by the Karnataka Digital Economy Mission, aims to alleviate infrastructural strain on Bengaluru by establishing alternative tech hubs.
The initiative aims to generate 10 lakh local jobs, build 10,000 regional startups, and capture $10 billion in IT services exports from these regional clusters by 2030. It is looking at Mysuru as the next major tech hub specializing in electronic system design manufacturing, cyber security, and AI; Mangaluru as India’s first ‘startup district’ with an emphasis on fintech, marine tech, deep tech and AI; Hubballi-Dharwad-Belagavi region as a major hub for AI, machine learning, Internet of Things, and advanced manufacturing; and Shivamogga, Tumakuru and Kalaburagi for IT/ITeS penetration, localized entrepreneurship, and digital talent upskilling.
One can only hope and pray that while this is being pursued, the town planning honchos do not adopt similar designs and measures in tier-2 & 3 cities as were adopted for some monumentally infamous projects in Bengaluru, which has only contributed to more traffic congestion rather than ease it. Such projects – poorly designed without considering people’s convenience – are like seeds sown for future problems.
At least three such projects come to mind, and all are on the Sankey Road/Ballari Road stretch, which is the arterial road connecting the city with its Kempegowda International Airport – the Cauvery ‘Magic Box’ underpass, the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) Overpass near Windsor Manor, and the Hebbal Flyover Complex. These have relentlessly posed traffic congestion problems because of their poor design, wasting their very purpose.
The Cauvery ‘Magic Box’ may well be counted among the most hilarious of engineering marvels, questioning the road engineering and design brains applied while constructing it. It was constructed by the erstwhile Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) in 2008, using precast technology wherein concrete components are cast, cured, and hardened offsite before being transported to the construction site. Precast construction poses difficulties in making design modifications after the pieces are installed. It cost Rs 1.5 crore, taking over a month to complete instead of the 72 hours initially announced – and yet, it has served absolutely no purpose!
The Cauvery underpass was meant to reduce traffic pile-ups at the intersection of T Chowdiah Road and Ballari Road, while allowing easy traffic movement without stoppage to merge with the main traffic moving towards the central business district.
But the ‘Magic Box’ is not just poorly designed and cramped, it serves no purpose of enabling smooth traffic flow, because it opens up short of Ballari Road, needing the presence of the already stretched traffic police to regulate vehicular movement between those moving towards the airport or arriving from it and those emerging from the underpass to merge with traffic moving towards the city.
Considering its failure, the poorly designed structure is now often closed during peak hours by the traffic police themselves because opening it only adds to the traffic chaos rather than eases it, besides it often getting flooded during the rains.
The BDA Overpass was meant to ease traffic moving on Ballari Road, while allowing to and fro traffic between Seshadripuram/Palace Guttahalli and Vasanth Nagar (via Palace Road), allowing the latter through an underbridge carved out of the overpass. It was built primarily to ease congestion, but that never happened as the traffic police allows vehicles to move along the sides of the overpass along Raj Bhavan Road as the structure poses a huge bottleneck.
The Hebbal Flyover Complex has its own significant contribution to traffic congestion – again, a project that worsens congestion rather than eases it. Confusing signage and multiple exit points and lanes force vehicles to criss-cross each other, contributing to the chaos. Although modifications to the existing infrastructure brought in multi-lane elevated loops to ease the congestion to an extent, the bottlenecks, safety hazards and planning oversights remain glaring.
These three projects are cited only as examples. Poor planning – or the lack of it – has led to problems evolving subsequently across the city on multiple fronts, including poor mobility, erratic motoring without discipline, inadequate garbage handling measures, absence of proper footpaths, potholed roads, poor road designs leading to flooding during rains, among others.
However, while these tier-2 & 3 cities come into focus, Bengaluru’s woes must not get replicated there. Instead, lessons need to be learnt from how lack of proper planning in Bengaluru turned out counterproductive even as the planners ignored growth projections to understand how civic projects would serve the future purpose.
While one Bengaluru with all its problems is already too much to handle for the state government – which is now looking at Rs 1.5 lakh crore mega plans as solutions – it would do better to scientifically study each of the tier-2 & 3 cities ahead of planning projects there with the respective city’s future in mind. If the fate of Bengaluru gets replicated there down the years, it is anybody’s guess how it would impact the state’s economy and the welfare of its people.
