Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar
Credit: PTI PHoto
Bengaluru: Back from his visit to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar on Sunday hailed Switzerland as ‘heaven’ and stated that the state government would work towards developing a mobility grid in all cities of Karnataka by keeping in mind a horizon of 25 years.
“As cities are becoming urbanised, investors are keen to understand the government’s response to meet infrastructure demand. In this backdrop, we have decided to develop a mobility grid by notifying the areas for future roads well in advance,” Shivakumar said, praising the road network, traffic discipline, railway lines and weather of Switzerland.
The deputy CM said a meeting of Urban Development, Revenue and Panchayat Raj ministers would soon be called to formalise the plan on mobility grid.
During the event, Shivakumar said, a total of 45 companies expressed interest to invest in Karnataka.
“We decided not to sign any agreements with investors in Davos but invited them to participate in the Global Investors’ Meet. Many investors are excited about the artificial intelligence (AI) city we are planning in Bidadi.
Tunnel roads
Davos, he said, is twice the size of Sadashivanagar. “All world leaders preferred to walk a short distance of 1-2 km because of the long traffic jams. Even the airport was about 200 km away. During my road trip from Zurich, I passed through 40-50 tunnels. Some of them were short and a few were as long as 20 km,” he said, indirectly defending his own proposal to build the controversial tunnel road in Bengaluru.
“I discussed the tunnel project with the Maharashtra chief minister as he is building a lot of tunnels. They have some suggestions about parking facilities near tunnels. We would like to visit some of the tunnel projects in Maharashtra,” he said, adding that the government would approach the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for a loan towards building the second tunnel road (east-west corridor).
Shivakumar said billionaire Elon Musk had a company that manufactures tunnel-boring machines but their diameter was 3-6 metres. “These machines are suited for metro projects but tunnel roads need bigger ones,” he said.
He reiterated that the world is looking at India through Bengaluru. “New Delhi was facing problems with air pollution. Mumbai does not have the IT-related workforce and human resource that Bengaluru enjoys. This is our biggest asset,” he said, stating that inquiries from investors were most related to data centers, global capability centers, aviation, food and beverage, renewable energy, electrical vehicles (EVs), etc.