Midweek Musings 34, 29.07.2026

 Planned Land use was the key to Bangalore being so good.

By Malini Shankar

Digital Discourse

Bangalore was and remains the coolest city in the Indian Subcontinent but we are fast losing the heavenly gift. Its salubrious sub montane weather was because Bangalore has the highest point on the plains in India – on the Deccan Plateau. Located between the Tropic of Cancer and the Equator middle of the peninsula, equidistant from both the coasts, gifted with flat fertile soil and balmy mild weather all year round, it was cultivated by the Colonial power where the British Resident oversaw the development initiated by the colonial power and executed by the Mysore Wodeyar Kings with very able administrators like Sir M.V. Vishewariah, Sir Mirza Ismail, Dewan Madhav Rao, Dewan M.N. Krishna Rao, and their ilk.

Broad streets and main roads were planned to intersect major suburban layouts, commercial hubs and so on; suburbs commercial and industrial areas were so immaculately planned. Bus service for the common man too was a public sector affair. Even physically challenged persons could use these busses for school / University or employment. Neatly earmarked areas were zoned for industrial use, green lung spaces, residential areas, markets, commercial hubs, heath care institutions were well spaced out, few and far between but the ambulance service worked fine and health care was certainly not expensive. Public sector undertakings were planned with provision of housing, health care infrastructure, utilitarian infrastructure and transport too. Old economy complemented the whole fiscal cycle and social fabric. There was no poverty; the whole society was sustainable.

Bangalore’s weather was so famously mild that height of summer temperatures never exceeded 32⁰ C. Foggy mornings characterised summer mornings and people wore half armed sweaters even in the height of summer in Bangalore till around 1980. We Bangaloreans never knew perspiration! Rains came on time, both summers and winters were mild.

Employees of PSUs like BEML, HAL, BEL NAL, BHEL, etc went to work by the bus service set in place by their employers – the PSUs. Of course they had wee hours of work. But factory canteens did not give them new age endocrine disorders. Night shift employees would get off the busses go to the nearest bakery chew a bun,  and washed it down with the famous almond milk and go home, instead of waking up their wives. Endocrine disorders like diabetes and hypertension was only for those over 65 years of age. Stress was unheard of!

There was no disposable wealth for purchase of luxury brands for purses, diamond necklaces, family outings to the restaurant was once or twice a month for the creamy layer that included professionals.  Entertainment was watching illuminated monuments like our beloved Vidhana Soudha Building.

But these very PSUs had drained the economy so much that it had to come out of protected economy. Liberalisation was inevitable and in 1991 when Dr. Manmohan Singh introduced fiscal reforms, lo behold it translated to a throbbing economy for India. The flip side was material corruption. Each Indian had to own three to five cars, own three pieces of real estate, and earn a five figure income. And to support this madness came World Bank funded flyovers, real estate projects became venture capital funded projects… while the economy was throbbing, sustainability was completely lost. Health care, education, were humbling compromises.  Poverty started showing through the wide gaps between the rich and poor all over India. Independent houses started making way for multi storeyed housing complexes, trees and wildlife disappeared, air conditioners came in.

Liberalisation brought in the software revolution, almost wholly side-lining automobile, mechanical engineering and other manufacturing edifices in Bangalore. The footprint of the software industry (Paying Guest accommodation owners are planning and constructing 75 bedrooms in one building),   

Playgrounds, parks an open spaces were cleared for Malls and the ubiquitous Bangalore phenomenon “Mixed Use” buildings. If you have residential portions on the upper floors making a parking lot is mandatory. But the basements are monetised or commerialised by way of super markets. So residents had to park their cars outside the buildings. Parking on pavements means people cannot walk on pavements. Traffic density on the roads means two wheelers started skating on the pavements endangering the lives of frail human beings walking on pavements. Basement super markets were flooded during monsoons.  

Boom town rats only worsened the limits of a green city bursting at the seams. Without horizontal economic growth but horizontal encroachment there is unbridled pressure on water supply, power supply, cooking gas, sewage connections etc. Illegal tenements and commercial vendors are ruining everything: palate pleasing food suppliers are compromising health of immigrant population living and working out of a hole in the wall. PG accommodation hubs are becoming crime hotspots. Traffic chaos is becoming manifold. Planned bus services which were so much more sustainable are not being adequately complemented by a more robust multiple modes of public transport. Single user cars are creating gassing the elevated city that is Bangalore. Migrants are not finding livelihood security in bursting Bangalore so they take a loan and buy a car to run it as a cab. The vehicles being operated as cabs in Bangalore are not exactly of high emission standards. Consequent CO emissions are ruining the oxygen levels, and increasing Carbon Monoxide or CO emissions.  

Now ancestral properties in Bangalore are being hunted by “real estate developers” to create the mixed use commercial hubs that are suicidal to the urban growth.

           Bangalore desperately needs planning to reinvent smart city governance. It was smarter before                liberalisation ruined the beautiful city.