Friday May 9, 01:49 PM
FOCUS Shanghai dreams beckon Bangalore as Karnataka faces crucial polls
BANGALORE (Thomson Financial) - The ensuing elections in the southern Indian state of Karnataka seem to have caught global attention with improved infrastructure hogging the limelight.
The emphasis on infrastructure is certain to appeal
to the business community in Bangalore where traffic snarls, poor transport and project implementation delays have pushed city-based industry captains to threaten to move elsewhere.
'Bangalore's biggest problem is its awful infrastructure,' says Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, chairman and managing director of bio-technology firm Biocon Ltd. 'The city has changed a lot in the past 10 years but the government's failure to keep pace with growth has resulted in Bangalore morphing into an overgrown village.' Shaw has even announced business expansion plans in other cities, citing Bangalor's poor infrastructure.
It is not just threats from industry captains that have forced Karnataka's political parties to reach out to the urban voter but the delimitation of constituencies in the state, which has given Bangalore many more seats in the state assembly.
'Bangalore accounted for only 16 out of 224 assembly seats during the 2004 elections,' says former Karnataka chief minister and Congress leader Somanahalli Mallaiah Krishna. 'Following the delimitation of constituencies, it has 28 seats. No wonder there is a mad scramble among political parties to woo the Bangalore voter through good infrastructure.'
The Congress, which heads the ruling coalition in New Delhi has promised Bangalore a 500-billion rupee facelift over the next five years. That includes plans for a metro rail network, a dedicated expressway connecting the new international airport and making liquefied natural gas the compulsory fuel for public transport vehicles to combat pollution.
'If the voters elect the Congress to power this time it will be a signal for investors who have left Karnataka to return,' Krishna added.
The Janata Dal (S), another political party, too has, for the first time focused on Bangalore in its election manifesto promising to transform it into another Shanghai. Its emphasis is on decongestion of vehicular traffic and widening of roads, for which it plans to set aside 80 billion rupees. It also plans to erect shopping malls, multiplexes and parking lots.
Keeping in step with its rivals, the Bharatiya Janata Party, the largest party in Karnataka, has proposed separate international and domestic airports for Bangalore, direct elections to the post of city mayor and upgrade of the existing road network.
Besides sprucing up Bangalore, Bookanakere Siddalingappa Yediyurappa, the BJP's chief ministerial candidate, says his party will woo industry with sops and incentives. 'We realise that business is moving out of Bangalore to other states,' he said. 'Therefore, apart from infrastructure development we intend to match incentives offered by other states to attract and retain investments.'
While industry captains are happy with the interest political parties are showing in developing Bangalore's infrastructure, they are apprehensive about the elections throwing up another fractured verdict.
Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises Ltd.'s managing director, Ashok Kheny, who had taken the JD (S) led coalition to court over the 20 billion rupee Bangalore-Mysore express highway project, says: 'Governance had suffered during the past four years of coalition rule as the partners in power were pulling in different directions. For development of the state we need long term commitment and vision which only a single party majority can provide.'
Mazumdar-Shaw of Biocon agrees. 'In coalition governments there is no meeting of minds,' she says. 'Our experience of the last four years has shown that the partners in power were busy wooing their respective vote banks and the end result was governance with a narrow worldview.'
'Bangalore had great potential to become a leading technology cluster in the world,' says Phaneesh Murthy, chief executive officer of iGATE Corp., a leading IT services company. 'It could have been the largest location for highly qualified information technology professionals to congregate and build the next generation solutions for the world. Unfortunately for Bangalore and fortunately for the rest of India, the lack of timely investments in infrastructure ended up diffusing the technology cluster to different cities.'
The challenge for Bangalore and Karnataka lies in quick and efficient execution of plans, feel the industry captains.
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