Budget focuses on housing, road projects for Bangalore

A systematic break-up of major announcements made for Bangalore in the ‘fresh’ State budget for 2013-14 gives a feeling of deja vu.

 “It is a book full of schemes with no priority. People expected a better budget from somebody like Siddaramaiah, but one cannot expect too much from this as it is already July. Ideally, there should not be two budgets in one financial year, ”Ashwin Mahesh, a public policy analyst, told Deccan Herald.

Among the many announcements, development of City Cluster Development in Bangalore Metropolitan Area at a cost of Rs 2,100-crore is seen as a good initiative.
Sources in the government said that the government had taken a decision in February to develop eight such clusters using a loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

Under projects and allocations announced under Bangalore Development Authority (BDA), include construction and allocation of 6,500 flats, distributions of possession certificate to 8,000 allottees by March 2014 in the controversial Arkavathi Layout, formation of Nadaprabhu Kempegowda Layout and allotment of 5,000 sites in the same time frame.

Former Chief Secretary and urban affairs expert, A Ravindra, in an interaction questioned the spirit of the budget, which is mostly just borrowing of previous projects.

Another major project announced is the Rs 600 crore remodeling of commercial complexes of BDA at R T Nagar, Indiranagar and Austin town.

 Development of Peripheral International Ring Road with Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) loan assistance (Rs 2,250 crore) is another project under BDA, while the Rs 1,000 crore allocation towards a project to remodel and develop four major storm water valleys (Challaghatta, Hebbal, Koramangala and Vrishabhavathi) covering about 857-km within the BBMP area is the highlight.

Besides, widening of Bannerghatta Road and Sarjapur Road at a cost of Rs 300 crore, improvement of key junctions in CBD area (Rs 50 crore), construction of several skywalks (Rs 100 crore) and  planting of 1.60 lakh tree saplings across the city through BMRCL at a cost of Rs 20-crore were also announced.