<p class="bodytext">Bengaluru’s infamous traffic congestion has long demanded imagination, innovation, and above all, credibility. What it has received instead is a disquieting pattern of cut-and-paste planning. The latest controversy over a decongestion study commissioned by the erstwhile Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) lays bare the gaps in the city’s approach to urban mobility. Substantial portions of this report, prepared at Rs 5.5 crore, appear to have been lifted from a 2022 study by the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL). Comparisons suggest that 60%-75% of the document has been duplicated. This is the second such embarrassment in recent memory: an earlier tunnel road report had even referenced traffic volumes for Malegaon and Nashik in Maharashtra. Together, these episodes point to a systemic erosion of due diligence in big-ticket projects involving public money. They also raise questions about the oversight role of the Bengaluru Metropolitan Land Transport Authority (BMLTA), which was envisioned as a single umbrella to prevent this kind of fragmented, unverified planning.</p>.<p class="bodytext">No doubt, all urban planning builds on prior studies. Data, frameworks, and insights are meant to be referenced, refined, and updated. But replication without recalibration is self-defeating, particularly in a city growing as rapidly as Bengaluru. Traffic patterns, vehicle densities, and commuting behaviours here evolve continuously. How, then, can congestion be meaningfully addressed using outdated assumptions? This comes at a time when Bengaluru’s broader mobility framework itself is in flux. The Comprehensive Mobility Plan is under revision because its latest iteration relied on travel data from 2014-15 – hopelessly obsolete for a metropolis that has since expanded dramatically. Compounding this is a more fundamental vacuum: the absence of an updated Comprehensive Development Plan. With the city still governed by an outdated master plan, infrastructure agencies operate without a shared spatial blueprint, leading to fragmented, often contradictory interventions.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The result is a paradox that defines Bengaluru today: a city of the future being planned with the data of the distant past. Instead of anticipating growth, civic authorities are planning with recycled reports and stale assumptions. Public money is being spent not on fresh thinking, but on reproducing old work. Urban planning cannot be reduced to an exercise in duplication. If Bengaluru is to reclaim control over its mobility crisis, it must invest not just in infrastructure, but in the integrity of the processes that shape it. Otherwise, the city risks building not for the future, but for a past that no longer exists.</p>
<p class="bodytext">Bengaluru’s infamous traffic congestion has long demanded imagination, innovation, and above all, credibility. What it has received instead is a disquieting pattern of cut-and-paste planning. The latest controversy over a decongestion study commissioned by the erstwhile Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) lays bare the gaps in the city’s approach to urban mobility. Substantial portions of this report, prepared at Rs 5.5 crore, appear to have been lifted from a 2022 study by the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL). Comparisons suggest that 60%-75% of the document has been duplicated. This is the second such embarrassment in recent memory: an earlier tunnel road report had even referenced traffic volumes for Malegaon and Nashik in Maharashtra. Together, these episodes point to a systemic erosion of due diligence in big-ticket projects involving public money. They also raise questions about the oversight role of the Bengaluru Metropolitan Land Transport Authority (BMLTA), which was envisioned as a single umbrella to prevent this kind of fragmented, unverified planning.</p>.<p class="bodytext">No doubt, all urban planning builds on prior studies. Data, frameworks, and insights are meant to be referenced, refined, and updated. But replication without recalibration is self-defeating, particularly in a city growing as rapidly as Bengaluru. Traffic patterns, vehicle densities, and commuting behaviours here evolve continuously. How, then, can congestion be meaningfully addressed using outdated assumptions? This comes at a time when Bengaluru’s broader mobility framework itself is in flux. The Comprehensive Mobility Plan is under revision because its latest iteration relied on travel data from 2014-15 – hopelessly obsolete for a metropolis that has since expanded dramatically. Compounding this is a more fundamental vacuum: the absence of an updated Comprehensive Development Plan. With the city still governed by an outdated master plan, infrastructure agencies operate without a shared spatial blueprint, leading to fragmented, often contradictory interventions.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The result is a paradox that defines Bengaluru today: a city of the future being planned with the data of the distant past. Instead of anticipating growth, civic authorities are planning with recycled reports and stale assumptions. Public money is being spent not on fresh thinking, but on reproducing old work. Urban planning cannot be reduced to an exercise in duplication. If Bengaluru is to reclaim control over its mobility crisis, it must invest not just in infrastructure, but in the integrity of the processes that shape it. Otherwise, the city risks building not for the future, but for a past that no longer exists.</p>
