It is never easy to adequately meet the infrastructure needs of Bangalore City, which, in the last decade-and-a-half has turned out to be one of the fastest growing cities in the country. The phenomenal pace of growth — spurred mainly by the service industry and the consequent influx of population — might have initially taken the city planners by surprise. But the element of surprise was taken away at least a decade ago with the liberalisation of the economy making Bangalore even more attractive for investors and other settlers. Unfortunately, however, the City’s infrastructure has not kept pace with its development.

The shockingly slow pace of implementation of the infrastructure projects in Bangalore City under the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), as chronicled in this newspaper, reflects the lackadaisical attitude of the authorities in meeting the growing needs of a burgeoning city. For a long time, the lack of funds was being trotted out as an excuse for not being able to upgrade the infrastructure in tune with the requirements. But, in the 2005-06 budget, the Centre made a unique proposal to meet one-third or more of the costs of infrastructure projects in selected urban conglomerates. With the kind of interest that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram showed in the development of Bangalore — recognised as the country’s premier IT city — funds were never going to be a problem as long as the city planners came up with viable projects.

But the state government and the the administration of Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike failed to take advantage of JNNURM to offer some relief to the City’s increasingly frustrated citizens. All the works under JNNURM have been progressing at a snail’s pace, and scandals involving money and delay in completion have marked the scheme. The Centre has now withheld the second installment of funds put at around Rs 150 crore for projects under JNNURM as the state government has failed to hold elections to BBMP for almost a year. The setting up of ward committees with elected representatives is a must for the release of funds under JNNRUM. Hopefully, the state, under President’s rule, will take urgent action to complete the election process as soon as possible and ensure that the infrastructure projects are completed on priority.