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When I decided to move from Mumbai (then Bombay) to Bengaluru (then Bangalore) in the late 1980s, I explained to concerned friends who could not understand why I would do such a thing that it was for a better quality of life. And I must say that, for at least a decade, the quality of life in this city lived up to my expectations.
As I told friends in what was then Bombay, what was then Bangalore had fewer cultural events, but it was so much easier to get to all of them. The drive from Indiranagar to Chowdaiah Memorial Hall, where most performances were held, took only 20 minutes.
Today, of course, there are far more interesting events in the many exciting cultural and other spaces that have come up in different parts of the city. But now it would probably take at least an hour to get from Indiranagar to Chowdaiah and, unfortunately, to many other theatres and event venues scattered across the city. There is a reason why the one – fortunately very active – institution in our neighbourhood has in many ways become our default option.
There is no doubt that the city has grown exponentially. The population rose steadily from under 40 lakhs in 1988 to over 50 lakhs in 1998 and then more rapidly from 77 lakhs in 2008 to 1.14 crores in 2018. Less than a decade later, in 2025, the population of Bengaluru is estimated to be almost 1.44 crores. According to the Karnataka State Directorate of Economics and Statistics (DES), it is expected to rise to nearly 1.47 crores by 2031.
Evidently, at least 1 crore people have come to stay in Bangalore over the past 37 years. But it appears that no one was expecting them, and no one was thinking about how the city would accommodate them.
How is this possible? Actually, the more relevant question may be: who was in charge? Karnataka has had at least 19 chief ministers (CMs) between August 1988 and 2025. A few of these CMs were repeats, some ruled for less than a year. The state was also under President’s Rule four times, albeit for brief periods. It is worth noting that all three main political parties in the state have had governments in place during this period. Significantly, dissidence was more or less endemic within all the parties and/or coalitions. As a result, efforts to stay in power probably took precedence over governance.
At various points over the past 25 years, successive CMs have set up several task forces comprising prominent industry leaders, academics, urbanists, bureaucrats, and others in an effort to help improve the city’s governance. Unfortunately, little appears to have been learnt in the process. For example, to date there is little coordination between the city’s various civic agencies, with each often undoing the work of the other and thereby adding to the mess on the ground.
The Bangalore Development Authority (BDA), charged with developing the city in a planned manner, clearly lost the plot (pun not fully intended) a long time ago. Its flagship project, Nadaprabhu Kempegowda Layout (NPKL), continues to be mired in controversy, with plot owners complaining about the continuing lack of basic civic infrastructure. Even older BDA layouts within earlier city limits now accommodate more people than originally planned, with residential and commercial buildings coming up on plots meant for single-owner houses. Recent news reports claim that the state government has approved the creation by the BDA of six new residential layouts along Peripheral Ring Road-2. It is anybody’s guess how long it will take for those layouts to become reality, considering the customary stumbling blocks in the path of land acquisition by government agencies.
There is little doubt that the city’s rapid, chaotic expansion into once rural areas has been led by the private sector — real estate developers and other companies. Much of this development has evidently taken place on unconverted agricultural land, with State Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda confirming earlier this year that "governments, over the years, have turned a blind eye to this illegality."
Over the past couple of decades, business/Information Technology (IT) parks, gated residential communities (most comprising several multi-storey buildings), and more modest private layouts have proliferated haphazardly beyond what used to be the city limits. Shops, restaurants, private educational institutions, and even hospitals have naturally sprouted along what used to be rural roads to meet the multiple needs of the large numbers of new urban residents.
The other day, we were driving to a village between Sarjapur Road and Hosur Road that the family has some connection to. A couple of decades ago, once we turned off Sarjapur Road at Kaikondrahalli village, we used to drive on a narrow road with fields on both sides, past a couple of other villages and a stone quarry or two. Now the city has reached the outskirts of the village, with several multi-storey housing complexes, some plotted residential layouts, a massive educational institution (with residential facilities), a couple of private sports facilities and the customary collection of shops, eateries, drycleaners/laundry services, gyms, grooming salons, and roadside vendors lining both sides of the same narrow road. The abandoned stone quarries have also been converted into housing estates.
No wonder there are now traffic jams even on that anonymous once-village road that government authorities, corporate leaders, and the media are probably unaware of. The scenario is no doubt similar in other parts of Bangalore Rural, now experiencing comparable urban blight. As Krishna Byre Gowda clarified, "It is estimated that Bengaluru Urban has 13,000 acres of revenue layouts. If these lands were [legally] converted and the [development] plans approved, 45% should have been earmarked for roads, parks, and playgrounds. That is nearly 6,000 acres of civic amenities that we did not get.”
To make matters worse, most of these areas are not served by the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB). So many of the new tech parks, gated communities, residential layouts, and various enterprises in these areas rely on borewells and private water tankers. Many discharge sewage into lakes and wetlands. Several industries discharge their (often toxic) waste into the closest water body. This is why, despite the city authorities’ expensive efforts at “rejuvenation” of lakes (with a reported annual budget of Rs 35 crore to cover 205 lakes), keeping lakes clean has been a Sisyphean task.
Despite this history, an additional Rs 80 crore has reportedly been sanctioned by the state government for the official rejuvenation of just one high-profile lake. On the other hand, the Puttenahalli Neighbourhood Lake Improvement Trust, a citizens’ group that had successfully maintained a lake for 15 years, has recently had to step back from continuing to nurture it following a notice from the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP).
Although Bengaluru is now notorious across the country for its traffic jams, they constitute only one of the many problems faced by residents, both within the old city limits and in outlying areas. Cracked and rutted roads (potholes is a euphemism); non-existent, narrow, damaged, or encroached footpaths; ubiquitous piles of debris and garbage; randomly parked vehicles (because, of course, no one seems to think it is important to plan for parking); hanging wires and cables; and more make it difficult for people to move around even on foot; for the elderly and people with disabilities, it is an even worse nightmare.
The knee-jerk reaction from the government to complaints about the abysmal state of the roads tends to be grand announcements about ‘white topping’, even though it is a controversial, time-consuming, and expensive solution to the problem. A recent announcement promised the white topping of 500 kms of roads in Bengaluru at an estimated cost of Rs 4,000 crore. Judging by the state of several roads white-topped over the past few years, this is not necessarily good news. The state cabinet has also set aside Rs 2,296 crore to implement various “development works” in Bengaluru, obviously in response to public criticism by prominent individuals about the crumbling road infrastructure. Of course, the focus is likely to be mainly on high-profile roads frequented by vocal and influential sections of the population. The route of the even more controversial and, in my opinion, ill-advised ‘tunnel road’ also suggests the same.
According to recent estimates, the city's roads are now clogged with more than 1.2 crore private vehicles; transport department data suggests that around 5.5 lakh new vehicles are added every year. Public transport has evidently not kept pace with the city’s growth.
The public bus service (run by the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation) has a fleet of 6,851 buses, which reportedly ferry about 40 lakh passengers every day. According to recent reports, another 100 buses are expected to be introduced on 25 high-density routes. However, bus frequency evidently continues to be a problem, especially in outlying areas. There have also been reports of problems with the electric buses that carry the BMTC name but are apparently not owned by it.
In the 14 years since Metro services first began in Bangalore with one 6.7 km line, the network has only expanded to 97 km, with little connectivity between the various lines. While over 10 lakh commuters currently use the Metro, the dream of a reliable, city-wide rapid transit network remains unfulfilled.
Similarly, the suburban rail project, first proposed in 1983, has barely taken off. Formally approved in August 2020, with a six-year completion timeline, the Bangalore Suburban Rail Project (BSRP) was finally inaugurated in June 2022 with a 40-month deadline for completion. With only a fraction of the work on the proposed 148 km network completed at the end of this period, partly due to a dispute with a contractor, construction work finally began again only in October 2025.
There have recently been calls to allow private companies to operate bus services within the city limits. However, it is important to remember that cities that have prioritised public transport are among the most liveable in the world—not just in the United Kingdom and most of Europe, but also in parts of Asia and Latin America.
The latest magic bullet expected to take care of the city’s ever-growing problems is the new Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA), with five separate city corporations under it, replacing the problem-ridden BBMP. These area-specific corporations do not yet cover the rural areas that have been messily turned urban over the past couple of decades, but reports suggest that the pros and cons of bringing “developed panchayats” under GBA limits are being discussed.
It remains to be seen whether or not the new structure will be able to effectively address the ever-growing city’s burgeoning civic woes. One negative point raised at a recent discussion on the GBA was the top-heavy nature of the new dispensation, with the involvement of the Chief Minister and other members of the cabinet, as well as members of Parliament (both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha) and members of the state legislature – whose roles and responsibilities are, obviously, quite different from those of a city corporator. Of course, with no corporation elections held for over five years, the city has not had an elected local government in place for some time.
In addition, the evident sidelining of the Constitution (74th Amendment) Act, 1992 – which provides for the establishment of urban local bodies (ULBs) as institutions of local self-government and the devolution of powers to them – is clearly a major problem. Only local elected representatives who are accessible and accountable to local residents are likely to be able to tackle local problems, which is the need of the hour.
So Bengaluru is still watching, waiting and hoping.
Ammu Joseph is an independent journalist and author based in Bengaluru. Views expressed here are the author’s own.
