The workshop was Inaugurated by Honorable Chief Minister
of Karnataka Shri Siddaramaiah. along with guest of honor Shri Ramalinga Reddy,
Minister for Transport, Mr. Jonas Hafstrom, Ambassador & Senior Advisor to
the minister for Trade H.E., Mr. Herald Sandberg, Ambassador, Embassy of Sweden,
and other delegates from Sweden.,
Karnataka is one of the major urbanized state in the
country with 2.36 crore people living in 213 urban local bodies. rapid
urbanization in Karnataka presents an opportunity but also presents a number of
challenges.
Given the density of population in urban area in India, the problem in Indian
cities may seem to be bigger and more complex than elsewhere. however, the
experiences of other cities and countries are highly relevant though we may
need to be inventive in adapting theses experiences to our conditions.
Cities as we all know are engines of economic growth. For
a city to be competitive, it needs to find sustainable solutions to the urban
development and urban transport problems through good planning. Good planning
requires strong institutions that are capable of understanding the current
conditions; analyzing alternatives and choosing the best possible scenario for implementation.
Therefore, enhancing individual and institutional capacities on a continuous
basis is the need of the hour. we are fully conscious of this need and are
striving to full fill the same.
A sustainable city is also not possible without a well- throughout
blueprint for development. We are looking at the possibilities of strengthening
the master plan process in our cities as I believe that a master plan with a
clear vision and growth strategies is required to promote sustainable
development. Out of 213 towns in the state, the master plan process has been
extended to 135 towns. Creation of scientific base maps using satellite images
is under progress for some towns.
Integration of transport and land use is an area of focus
for us. this integration, I believe, is important as urban sprawl is one of the
major causes for congestion that our cities are facing day-in and day-out.
Given the fact that in the last decade, the urban
population has increased by 5.66 million, improvement of trasport and other
infrastructure to cater to this growth is one of our major challenges, most of
the increase is centered in Bangalore causing undue pressure on the city's
infrastructure. It would be of interest to notice that the population of
Hubli-Dharwad which is the second largest urban agglomeration in Karnataka is
11% of the population of Bangalore City. Hence, improving the infrastructure in
Tier-two cities is an area of priority for us. significant investments are made
through projects like Karnataka Urban Infrastructure Development
Project(KUIDP), Karnataka Urban Development and Costal environmental management
project (KUDCEMP), Municipal reforms project (KMRP), UIDSSMT( Urban Infrastructure
Development in small and medium size towns), etc, to upgrade water supply, UGD
and other basic services in urban areas.
We have also been in the forefront in preparing mobility
plans for all our city corporations and are now in the process of preparing the
same for other cities.
in the recent years, we have invested on improving
connectivity-related infrastructure in two-tier cities including augmentation
of public transport in many two-tier cities and implementation of mass transit
in Hubli-Dharwad. However the magnitude of the task before us is daunting, it
is estimated that about 8500 million Euros would be the nature of investment that
is required for improving transport infrastructure in our major cities. The
requirement for Bangalore is many times more.
The strategies we adopt for sustainable transport in our
cities would also have to include measures that explicitly discourage use of
personal vehicles. I have read that Sweden has implemented congestion charge in
Stockholm. It would be of interest for us to know the issue, challenges and
outcome of implementation of such schemes. I believe that at least in
Bangalore, we may need to think of such measures to ensure a control on the
increasing use of personal vehicles for mobility….
