Bangalore should reinvent itself: Manmohan Singh

Bangalore, June 24 : Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today called upon city planners to reinvent Bangalore to maintain its lead over other cities in the country.

Laying the foundation stone for the first phase of the Rs 6,300 crore Bangalore Metro Rail Project, he said ''every other city in India has Bangalore in its sights and in the absence of determined, positive steps, there is no guarantee that the future will be a continuation of the past success of this city.'' Dr Singh said the cost of living, working and doing business should be kept low if the city was to continue to remain attractive as an investment destination.

''In the extremely competitive and dynamic world we live in, nations, states and cities slide up and down rankings on many parameters and Bangalore will need to keep reinventing itself for the future if it has to maintain its lead,'' he added.

Referring to the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, which would finance development of urban infrastructure and basic services for the urban poor, Dr Singh said Bangalore and Mysore were covered under the Mission and the State should prepare futuristic plans to take advantage of the Mission. ''You need to invest looking at the needs two decades from now,'' he added.

The Prime Minister said that while retaining its global image as a city of enormous creativity and individual enterprise, Bangalore should retain its historical reputation as a city of gentle and humane people. ''I sincerely hope Bangalore will also continue to flower and bloom as India's garden city, as the pride of all Kannadigas and of all Indians and a wonder for the rest of world.''

Stating that public transport was a national priority, Dr Singh said ''we cannot afford excessive dependence on private transport in our cities. Our cities cannot continue to develop in a haphazard manner.'' He underlined the urgent need for new investments in world class public infrastructure for cities and making them user-friendly and liveable.

He said rapid public transport had to be the focus of urban transport policies for years to come to decongest city centres and enable people to commute.

Referring to the Bangalore Metro project, Dr Singh hoped it would become a milestone in the city's progress. The project was a combined effort of Central and State owners and ''as joint owners, we must ensure it finishes on time in the next three years.'' He hoped that Metro planners had already given a thought to the future expansion of the project, with an eye on the future needs of this vibrant city.

Stating that Bangalore had a unique place in the nation, he said it had shown the way to progress and prosperity that the rest of the nation was now trying to emulate. He recalled the visionary entrepreneurships of people such as N R Narayanamurthy and Nandan M Nilekani of Infosys and Azim Premji of Wipro and said the city had become not only the IT capital of the country, but had emerged a rival to the Silicon Valley. ''Software earnings from Bangalore and other cities actually keep our balance of payments in a comfortable zone, even in these days when our oil imports are rising'' he added.

''However, this city whose skills are respected and feared across the world has suffered from lack of adequate infrastructure,'' he said, adding that other cities have been catching up investing for the future. This should be rectified.

The Prime Minister said that ever since the UPA took over the reigns of the country, it had been making sincere efforts to take up new projects which would propel Bangalore into the league of global cities. Work on Bangalore international airport finally took off last year after clearances were pushed through and a few days ago, the Government had decided to raise the level of Bangalore Medical College to that of AIIMS.

Union Urban Development Minister S Jaipal Reddy sought the State Government to take necessary steps to gain the maximum from the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission and said the State should reduce the stamp duty to five per cent and present detailed project reports for various projects it proposed to take up. He said that besides an equity contribution of Rs 1,000 crore, the Centre had also provided a subordinate debt of Rs 600 crore for the Bangalore Metro project.

Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram, expressing grave concern over the increasing pressure on the technopolis, said a city like Bangalore would come to a grinding halt if infrastructure challenges were not met with a sense of urgency. He complimented Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy for continuing from where the previous Dharam Singh Government had left in making the Bangalore metro project take off.

Mr Kumaraswamy emphasised the JD(S)-BJP Government's commitment to infrastructure development of Bangalore. However, the Government would like the growth of the State economy and the prosperity of its enterprises to spread to all parts of the State.

Stating that development of other tier-II cities and towns would be taken up on a priority basis, he said ''we would like this development to take palce transparently and in an open manner.'' The focus of infrastructure projects should genuinely be the promotion of commerce and industry and economic activity. He assured that the joint project between the Union and State Governments would be provided necessary autonomy so that it could be completed expeditiously.

The first phase of the project, covering a distance of 22 km in North-South and East-West corridors, would be completed by December 2011. The first elevated block between MG Road and Byappanahalli would be completed by the end of 2009.

UNI