Left out of NITI Aayog plan, Bengaluru crafts its own $300 billion economy roadmap

Bengaluru: Left out of the NITI Aayog’s national Growth Hub initiative, Bengaluru is now getting a homegrown economic roadmap with the Government of Karnataka (GoK) preparing to craft a new master plan for the Bengaluru Metropolitan Region to steer the next phase of growth. The ambitious plan aims to double Bengaluru’s economic output by 2032.

On Tuesday, senior bureaucrats signed an agreement with ISEG Foundation in the presence of Deputy CM DK Shivakumar with a target of preparing the blueprint in a span of four months. The exercise is also expected to suggest solutions for the city’s long-standing issues such as congestion, liveability and the quality of life, etc.

Spanning over 8,000 sq km across Bengaluru Urban, Rural, and South districts, the metropolitan region is home to roughly 16 million people and an estimated GDP of $149 billion. The plan is expected to boost Bengaluru's GDP to almost $300 billion.

It contributes over 43 per cent of Karnataka’s Gross State Domestic Product, the official document mentioned.

Officials said the masterplan will assess Bengaluru’s economy benchmarked against global peers and propose a phased implementation with financing strategies and governance mechanisms. “This is not just a city plan. It will be a regional economic strategy,” a senior official said, pointing to ambitions of positioning Bengaluru alongside global city-regions such as Tokyo, London and Singapore.

The report – which is expected to identify key growth drivers and investible interventions across different sectors – will be integrated into the upcoming comprehensive master plan of Bengaluru, Dy CM DK Shivakumar said. He added that Chief Secretary Shalini Rajneesh will head the high-level steering committee to give shape to the plan.

The push comes at a time when Bengaluru accounts for 42 per cent of India’s software exports, hosts over 875 Global Capability Centres, which is more than 30 per cent of the national total and is among the world’s largest hubs for artificial intelligence talent. Its economy has been expanding at over 9 per cent annually in real terms.

Moreover, the approach draws inspiration from the NITI Aayog-led 'G-Hub' initiative, which is preparing economic masterplans for cities such as Mumbai, Visakhapatnam and Pune. Bengaluru has not been covered in the first phase.