How is the infrastructure in the city? Ask around, and you'll come to a fairly uniform answer. A lot of people will say, "even by the standards of Indian cities, we are doing quite badly in Bengaluru. Why can't our roads or traffic be at least as good as those other places?"
Almost any conversation about infra quickly becomes focused on mobility. Especially the quality of road surfaces, and traffic speeds. This is understandable, because people relate to these things. But if we want to improve the infrastructure, this is not the way to look.
There are 5 kinds of infra. Physical infra is what we're familiar with - roads, bridges, footpaths, rail tracks, pipes, drains, pumping stations, treatment plants, communication lines, towers, cables. Everything we discuss when we speak of infra is of this kind, but we need more.
A second kind of infra is social. Our housing, public spaces, places of entertainment, medical facilities, gyms and sports centers, offices. People seek neighbourhoods that have these things, and their availability or absence shapes the city as much as the physical infra does.
A third kind, which impacts us for generations, is knowledge infrastructure. Schools & colleges, research, internships with leading firms, custom learning programs, and events that bring experts to present their insights.Places thriving today had a lot of this infra decades ago.
Fourth, is financial infra. Imagine not having a bank nearby, or to be not able to pay for things with your mobile phone or credit card. A lot of transactions would get slowed down. And good ideas that depend on access to capital would be grounded even before they had a chance.
Fifth is the infra of governance. Do we have a good planning institution? Do we have the admin machinery to execute plans, & reliable enforcement? Is govt integrated across related functions? Is staffing adequate? Are we able to collect sufficient data to enable good decisions?
Now let's go back to the question - how is the infra in the city? - and answer it with these five types in mind. And since almost 1000 people per day move into Bengaluru, let us also ask how we need to prepare for the future of the city, in addition to the things we want today.
There is a tremendous deficit of nearly all physical infra. The road network is incomplete in many parts of the city, we have less than 1% of the footpaths we need, we're about 7000 buses short, public water supply and sewage connections are available in only half the homes.
And continuing growth poses even greater challenges. We need to build a school every second day, a hospital every second week, induct 800 buses to the BMTC fleet each year, build 10,000 homes for the poor annually ... the numbers are staggering.
We haven't given ourselves a chance. We have a Planning Committee but no members, no integrated transport authority or urban services regulator. BBMP does not collect enough taxes, the police are under-staffed, and ward committees don't meet. This is not a recipe for success.
The world of learning is changing fast, but our institutions of learning are not. Most people don't have access to capital at fair interest rates, & turn to mafia lenders. Without adequate housing, schools, medical centers and more, an ocean of akrama has swelled up around us.
Hardest of all, we are too paralysed by the enormity of the challenge to do anything. But that doesn't change the truth. If we're looking for a way out, we have to play this whole board. Shifting a few pieces around and looking for an opening will eventually lead to check-mate.
