Bengaluru’s growth inevitable but its health consequences aren’t: Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao

Bengaluru: As Bengaluru grapples with rapid growth and mounting civic pressures, Health and Family Welfare Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao, senior policymakers and public health experts came together on Saturday to ask a fundamental question: Is the city enabling a healthy life for its residents? 

Titled 'Does Bengaluru Offer Its Citizens a Healthy Life?', the conversation was a part of a quarterly dialogue series convened by the Bangalore International Centre (BIC) and Janaagraha. 

The session examined how urban planning, infrastructure and governance shape public health outcomes in the city. 

Rao said Bengaluru’s growth was inevitable, but warned that its health consequences were not. 

"Rising pollution, pressure on water systems, lifestyle stress and long hours in traffic are driving an alarming increase in non-communicable diseases and mental health challenges,” he said, adding that strengthening urban public healthcare was now a governance priority.

The government, he noted, was expanding hospitals, upgrading facilities and rolling out urban primary care and early screening programmes to ensure early detection and prevention. 

He was accompanied on the panel by Malleswaram MLA C N Ashwath Narayan; Shreelata Rao Seshadri, Professor and Director, Ramalingaswami Centre for Equity and Social Determinants of Health, Public Health Foundation of India; and Nachiket Mor, Economist and Health Systems Researcher. 

The discussion was moderated by Srikanth Viswanathan, CEO, Janaagraha. 

Ashwath Narayan noted that while Bengaluru had made strides in healthcare innovation, prevention remained neglected. 

The panel highlighted how issues such as air quality, water supply, housing, mobility and access to public spaces are often treated as isolated civic problems, even though they are key determinants of health. The fragmented nature of governance across multiple agencies, they said, makes coordinated and preventive action difficult. 

“Most aspects of urban health can be fixed through better planning, infrastructure and service delivery,” said Viswanathan, calling for public health to be treated as a cross-cutting priority as the city restructures its governance framework.