Opinion Missing in Karnataka election: The city
Quality of our cities is the quality of our lives. What should also be an important issue in this poll is that Bengaluru is a basket case of disastrous urban planning and consequent insufficient infrastructure, environmental damage, unaffordable real estate
Bengaluru has a population of around 11 million and is one of the fastest growing urban agglomerations in India. (File Representational Photo) The issue of urban development carries a strange duality about its relevance in politics. On one hand, almost all election campaign material and promises of a developed country feature tall buildings, quality public spaces, and clean, lively streets indicating the indispensable role and the political nature of a prosperous urban imagination. On the other hand, in elections, citizens rarely hold governments accountable for issues of urban infrastructure. Rarely do people vote on issues such as water logging, rising rents, or lack of good streets. Most Indian cities, for example, get flooded every year, but that has rarely contributed towards anti-incumbency. Ironically, the politicians who pose against the backdrop of a developed skyline do not lose sleep over the fact that their constituency was flooded in the last monsoon.
In this context, the upcoming Karnataka elections are very relevant. The state’s capital, Bengaluru, is the basket case of disastrous urban planning and the consequent insufficient infrastructure, environmental damage, and unaffordable real estate.
The first urban planning policy for Bengaluru was framed in 1952 by the Bangalore Development Committee after the city grew between 1941-51 owing to the rise in public sector employment opportunities. The committee prepared an Outline Development Plan and submitted it to the government which enforced the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act in 1965 and adopted the plan in 1972. In 1976, the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) was constituted to prepare a Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) every 10 years.
Bengaluru became the sixth-largest city in India by 1961 with a population of 1.2 million at the time and grew further in the 1970s with private manufacturing coming to the region. Through the 1980s, however, led by the emerging technology sector and then by the IT industry, Bengaluru saw exponential growth of population — from 1.2 million in 1961 to 1.6 million in 1971. The population further jumped to 2.9 million in 1981 and 4.1 million in 1991. In a (delayed) response to this growth, the Bangalore Metropolitan Region Development Authority was established in 1986.
With a lot of capital and population flowing into the city, the government struggled to keep up with the demands and pressures of the urban agglomeration for two fundamental reasons. First, nobody saw the IT boom coming. In the 1970s, it was impossible to predict the rate at which the IT sector would grow thenceforth. As Bengaluru expanded, the government found itself unprepared to generate a timely policy response. Second, the deterministic and descriptive nature of urban plans could not accommodate such unpredictable scenarios. There was, to put in simpler terms, no flexibility in urban regulations to accommodate the private sector-led growth of Bengaluru.
A rapidly increasing demand for floor space was met with an insufficient supply. The Floor Space Index (FSI) was not regulated to complement the city’s growth and real estate costs and rents shot up. Urban regulations could not provide allied infrastructure either, resulting in mismanaged traffic, insufficient streets, and poor water supply and sanitation services.
Today, Bengaluru has a population of around 11 million and is one of the fastest growing urban agglomerations in India. It is also a severely stressed city. Housing in Bengaluru is unaffordable, the city is infamous for traffic congestion, its numerous lakes have suffered, and the city faces severe water-logging every monsoon. Public memory is short lived, but it is worth recalling that in September 2022, devastating visuals from a flooded Bengaluru were in abundance on social media. In response to the outrage, the chief minister had to promise compensation to private companies.
This brings us back to the upcoming elections. Issues of urban infrastructure have not gained spotlight in the election narratives in Karnataka. A quick look at the manifestos, however, reveals that while discussing water logging does not make for sensational airtime, both the incumbent and the opposition parties understand that a manifesto completely bereft of urban issues will not be received well in the state.
The BJP’s manifesto for Karnataka pays lip-service to some core issues such as water supply and drainage, ignores the problem of environmental degradation and housing costs and promises large urban infrastructure projects with a global appeal. This includes creation of multi-modal transport hubs “similar to the WTC transport hub in New York” and unified transit network “inspired by Transport for London”.
The manifesto also focuses on integrating technology in the city infrastructure through apps that will help navigate traffic and public transportation in Bengaluru. The manifesto goes a bit too far in its tech-appeal and promises to install CCTVs with facial recognition capabilities — a rather problematic idea — on the streets of the city. Overall, the incumbent party’s manifesto falls short of addressing what is actually wrong with Bengaluru.
The Congress’s manifesto shows more confidence and clarity. It attempts to address Bengaluru’s water supply problem with more specificity and discusses solid waste management with more depth than is expected from a campaign document. The Congress’s manifesto seems clearer on policy as well. It promises to increase FSI, provide multi-storey parking in cities, build a better street network, and regularise slums. It also promises simpler Transferable Development Rights regulations and proposes amendments to bylaws. However, the Congress too fails to touch upon the degrading state of the lakes of Bengaluru and provides no answer to the problems of traffic congestion in the city.
The manifesto of a political party is, unfortunately, not a widely read document and issues of urban infrastructure rarely feature in the election season. However, the fact is urban infrastructure is the canvas of modern life and politics. Cities offer social mobility, house institutions, provide opportunities to trade and pursue prosperity and happiness. They are harbingers of civilisational values. It is, therefore, of utmost importance that voters demand better urban infrastructure and register their approval or disappointment during voting. Quality of our cities is the quality of our lives, and this relationship needs a more robust electoral articulation.
Zuberi is an independent scholar and researcher of architecture and city studies
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