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Even as SB has suggested a PIL for instituting planned development of the city, here comes another grand scheme, info on which was posted in the CAF googlegroup by a member.

Busted:

Transport authorities have begun work on the Rs 700-crore Inter Model Transit Centre project at the Majestic Bus Stand, also referred to as the Kempegowda Bus Terminal.

The building, expected to be sixty-six storeys high, will be the tallest in the country, according to transport officials.

Work on the project has begun as the plan has been approved by the authorities. But Bangaloreans are not happy at the thought of losing yet another of their heritage landmarks.

Public in dark:

People's representative groups are furious that public has not been informed about the plan. They are gearing up to move court.

"The project cannot be undertaken just like that. A concrete and comprehensive plan has to be prepared. It has to be debated and then has to take off using minimum space in Majestic. The public is not aware about the development," said former Bangalore mayor P R Ramesh.

"It's wrong to start work without bringing it to public notice. As Kempegowda bus terminal is a unique structure and an important landmark, they can't demolish it. Officials have to take people into confidence, which they haven't. If that is the case, we will move court," said Lakshminarayan, former deputy mayor, Bangalore.

Proposes plan

The transport ministry has given their consent for the proposed plan which involves the construction of more than sixty floors. The process of shifting depots began last week.

Three designs for the construction of the structure have been proposed. They are: one like Ali Burj Hotel in Dubai, Double Tusk design and Shikara design.

"We have started work on the project after consultations with the public representatives. Shifting work has begun. Construction will also begin after the structure shape is finalized.

'Work has begun'

"We are having talks with private companies, who are interested in taking up this initiative under PPP (public private partnership)," said M A Saleem, director (security and vigilance), KSRTC.

Initially KSRTC will shift BMTC and KSRTC depots to four other places in Bangalore. A part of BMTC depot has already been shifted to Mysore road.

The layout

While 1,43,000-sq feet has been set aside for public purpose 36 lakh sq feet is earmarked for commercial use. The iconic tower will come up in the northwestern side. Shopping malls and cinema theatres will be constructed in the western side of the building.

Metro and Monorail stations will come up in the fifth and fourth floors. Third and second floors will serve the parking purpose and first floor will be BMTC terminal above which KSRTC terminal is proposed.

Seven floors above the ground floor will serve as offices to many government departments.

Final plan

"The plan is finalised. The new terminal is designed under densification of corridor concept, which supports seamless travel. As it has been finalised, the work has begun," said M N Shrihari, advisor to BMTC.

Muralidhar Rao

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Why more IT parks in Bangalore alone, why not in other smaller cities in Karnataka. Congestion is removed, also it develops other areas of Karnataka,  and provides a window of opportunity to develop the infrastructure in those cities.

Agreed that Govt interest in IT is important, IT which somehow eventhough the poiticians did not envisage this trend has come to be India's trademark, and its important to retain atleast this position(we missed out on manufacturing in a big way). One other example wrt to IT is Ireland. But i think the Govt needs to start thinking about other fields as well. IT gives employment to only a few people, what about the underprevilleged?. A policy that focuses big on infrastructure(on the PPP model) would generate a lot more jobs than in the IT industry as well as work in tandem to support the IT industry.

Pls do correct me if i was wrong about something.

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that article talks about parks for small and micro IT enterprises. perhaps a welcome move away from the constant focus on large IT-walas and the big $ investments. but beyond IT, bengaluru used to host many small and micro enterprises in general engineering. how about support for that? at some level shouldn't the focus be on entrepreneurship? i hope as an industry member as an entrepreneur, devesh can start a dialogue about the health of the general industry in bangalore.

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I think we need to seriously embrace the motto -- "slower growth for smarter management". This will sound like sacrilege but I would not be unhappy if there is a slow down in the inflow of new projects. Assuming we have capable leaders, a slow growth period of 3 years will allow our fair city to partially recover from the wounds inflicted on it.

tarlesubba makes an excellent point about promoting small and microenterprises. The city's attitude towards the small entrpreneur has to change. I have been in the process of growing the Bangalore office of my small US-based company for the past 2 years. I have a couple of young engineers who think like entrepreneurs and I can see the struggle they go through to resist the pull of the big IT companies. Life for them would be so much easier if they joined the Honeywells of the world -- better chances of getting a loan, fatter pay packets, better matrimonial prospects (!) etc. This entire eco-system of Bangalore is geared towards the large IT companies and that is a tragedy because innovation will not really come from there.

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 ... slower growth with socialism, Nehruvian or otherwise. Many in this forum are probably not old enough to remember the growth years of the electronics industry in the US in the mid 70s/early 80s. I worked for Hewlett Packard (a name that is synonymous with Silicon Valley) during this time and the theme "slower growth is smarter management" was the leitmotif within the company.

Now why would a beacon of capitalism (Dave Packard also served as the Deputy Defense Secretary for part of this time period) say something as incongruous as this? Hewlett and Packard (Bill and Dave to all their employees, by the way) were very wise men and they knew that they could easily sacrifice the core company values in the altar of growth. They saw that the long-term viability of the company was predicated on preserving the soul of the company. These men and other that followed them (up until Carly Fiorina, who destroyed everything that her predecessors had built) carefully traded a few points of growth for preserving the “HP Way”. Ideology, values etc. were not some woolly or romantic ideas to these men.

Now why is this relevant here? I think the Bangalore of the past 5 years and perhaps the next 10 is in a similar position to the HP of the mid-70s. The difference, however, is that HP wisely applied the brakes to make sure that the internal capacity to deliver of the company was not damaged. In large part, this capacity was the human resources of the company. 

Bangalore has done no such thing. Bangalore is a city that has lost its soul in its quest to grow. I saw this first hand a couple of years ago. My office was in one of the buildings at the RMZ Millenia (the old Phillips campus). I was waiting to cross Murphy Road in front of the building in peak hour traffic when I noticed a young severely handicapped man, also waiting to cross. He told me that he had been waiting for 15 minutes to cross the street and the traffic would just not stop for him. Ironically, we were waiting at a pedestrian crossing with a flashing yellow light (which  has since been put out of action). It took us a further 10 minutes to eventually cross the street. Did any of the motorists care enough to stop for this helpless man?

I have tens of stories like this. Collectively, we have thousands of stories like this.

Does the fable "the goose that laid the golden eggs" have any relevance in this context?

And, oh by the way Devesh, epithets like "coolie mentality", "the white man is always right" etc. etc. may be suitable for great rabblerousing speeches but do not necessarily make an argument  more compelling!

 

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