Karnataka Budget has welcome aspects for Bengaluru

It is good to see that the budget contains more outcome-oriented headers like economic growth, women’s welfare, inclusive welfare, etc., with the usual grab bag of projects listed under them.

Needless to add, there is a section for Bengaluru given the oversized role it plays in the state’s GDP. It does give teeth to some of the many ideas set out in the CMs’ Mission Bengaluru (CMB) 2022 and that is a welcome sign.

Making public spaces come alive was a dominant theme in CMB 2022 and money has been set aside for Experience Bengaluru at Mysore Lamps and the greening (tree park) of NGEF.

However, one wishes NGEF is treated more holistically in terms of repurposing the warehouses and structures as public exhibitions and sports venues. There is mention of three other tree parks – trust one of them is not at Turahalli which deserves to be left as a forest. The Koramangala Valley drain project (essentially ensuring sewage does not enter it) is positioned as a tourism attraction project – it is a rose by any name!

Just envisaging a Business Park next to the airport represents a limited vision. It is better to be more ambitious in planning it as a MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, Entertainment) project – this can be the first in India on scale.

We could do with less ambition with the ‘One Nation One Card’ theme for integrating our two local alphabet soups of BMRCL and BMTC, which just needs focused implementation efforts. Else, this card integration project will join the PRR project as always due to arrive.

The separate parastatal for Solid Waste Management was announced earlier and there is now money to go forward. It is an unwise decision to introduce one more parastatal on the argument that the BBMP is broken and only a new agency can fix it.

We need to find the political will and administrative rigour to do transformative reforms for the third tier of city government for megacities like Bengaluru. The practice of announcing the bulk of the BBMP project items through the state budget in a kind of a tied in grant needs to give way to greater decentralization on the direction of spends.

One area the budget could help in shoring up revenues through private involvement is innovative ways of sweating existing assets. In multiple places, there is mention of improving government school infrastructure and providing upskill training. If government schools can be leased out in the evening for vocational and training classes, it will serve the twin purpose of raising money and improving skills.

Lastly, there is mention of making some changes to the Karnataka Town & Country Planning Act to help land acquisitions and faster TDRs.

We need a comprehensive rehaul of the archaic Act to make it relevant to current realities. This budget for Bengaluru has welcome aspects. It could have been more transformational in its ambition.

(The writer is an urbanist)