Bangalore’s got the beans

Bangalore’s got the beans
Bibek DebroyPosted online: Monday, May 12, 2008 at 0012 hrs Print EmailKarnataka’s capital has money, ideas and citizens’ support for change. Will elections change its politics?


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Why are India’s roads in bad condition? Despite repairs, potholes appear within a few months. Presumably because there will be employment generation effects with a fresh round of repairs and a new round of rent-seeking when fresh contracts are invited. The Karnataka High Court certainly believes this hypothesis. Not very long ago, responding to a PIL, the court observed, “They (Bangalore Mahanagar Palike) want the roads to remain in good condition only for two months so that they get kickbacks from the contractors for awarding relaying works. The palike does not want the road to be in good condition even for two years.” By any criterion (per capita state domestic product, growth, poverty ratio, unemployment rate, human development, FDI share, percentage area irrigated), Karnataka is among the better-performing states and, post-1991, divergence with all-India trends has increased. There will soon be a new government in Karnataka. Shouldn’t good economic performance make a new government’s task of governance easier? Enhancing Karnataka’s performance is in a different league from transforming Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa or the Northeast. In that sense, a Karnataka government is more culpable. Unfavourable exogenous scapegoats aren’t that easy to find.

Karnataka isn’t about IT, BT, the service sector and the knowledge economy alone. There is plenty of manufacturing (public sector included) and 56 per cent of the workforce is still employed in agriculture. Nor is Karnataka synonymous with Bangalore, even for IT and BT. However, Bangalore is Karnataka’s visible face. Lest we forget, in 1906, Bangalore was the first city in India to have electricity. And by Bangalore, we typically mean the district Bangalore Urban. Rarely do we mean Bangalore Rural or Ramanagara. The Davos-type figures for Bangalore Urban have often been cited — second fastest-growing city between 1991 and 2001 (after Delhi), third largest number of high net worth (dollar millionaires) individuals (after Mumbai and Delhi), fourth most affluent market (after Delhi, Mumbai Suburban and Thane), second highest literacy rate for a city (after Mumbai), slum population of only 10 per cent and a low crime rate. If silicon implants fail to leave a more lasting imprint on the garden city, that’s because of creaking infrastructure, infrastructure interpreted not just as roads and transport, but also power, water and urban waste disposal.

Mysore’s capital moved from Mysore to Bangalore in 1831. Why did Bangalore take off then? The two main reasons were telegraph connections and rail connectivity to Madras, introduced in 1864. These lessons about connectivity’s importance for development don’t change, not even in the 21st century and notwithstanding the virtual world.

The flyovers and one-way streets didn’t deliver, or didn’t deliver enough. Nor did the Bangalore Mahanagar Palike (BMP) deliver, which is perhaps the reason why it was replaced by Greater Bangalore Municipal Corporation (GBMC) in 2007. The role of one factor in improving post-1991 Indian performance is inadequately appreciated and that’s the role of civil society, not just in exerting countervailing pressure and forcing public expenditure to become more transparent and accountable, but also in working with the government. By and large, this civil society role is urban-centric and one of the imponderables is why it happens in some parts (even within urban segments) of the country and not in others. There are several such organisations in Bangalore and, indeed, the Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF) was also meant to achieve this. However, what has happened to BATF is not clear. BATF’s website (www.onlinebangalore.com) still talks about making Bangalore the best city in India by “2004 AD” and implementation of short-term plans by “June 2007”. That doesn’t sound very promising.

Nevertheless, there are some clear advantages an incoming government possesses. First, despite what has happened to the BATF, civil society presence exists. Second, funds have been available from the central budget for improving Bangalore’s infrastructure, including from the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission. Third, there are existing plans for improving transport infrastructure — the new international airport in Devanahalli (inauguration in 2008), the metro (inauguration in 2011) and an elevated toll network all the way to Chennai (date unspecified). For what it is worth, the existing airport isn’t controlled by the Airports Authority of India. Fourth, there were some sporadic attempts to improve police stations in Bangalore, though one hasn’t heard much about this in the last couple of years.

Citizen interface with the government is usually at the level of local bodies, particularly for public services, not with state governments, though state governments have a co-ordinating role across various organisations (municipal corporation, power, Bangalore Development Authority, water supply and sewerage, transport, police, telecom) that deliver public services. One gets the sense that the government which exited in 2007 failed to ensure this and energise BMP/GBMC.

Understandably, Karnataka still scores high on e-readiness indices that rank Indian states. The Bhoomi project (computerisation of land records) and the revamp of property taxation in Bangalore are often cited. But as a World Bank report once said, putting an “e” in front of governance doesn’t necessarily improve governance. Many governance initiatives in Karnataka date to governments prior to May 2004. Since then, governance doesn’t seem to have been a priority. What can be done, and needs to be done, has been documented ad nauseam. All that is required is putting governance back on the agenda. Given what was said earlier about Karnataka’s (and Bangalore’s) growth, citizens deserve better. Improving infrastructure in Bangalore isn’t that difficult, though the payoff period is longer than a politician’s myopic time-horizon of five years.

The origins of the name Bangalore are obscure. It may have had something to do with rocks or guards, but the more common belief is one of boiled beans. The most remembered bean story is about Jack and the beanstalk, where Jack planted some magical beans and eventually killed the giant, with some help from the giant’s wife. There are no magical beans. But there are real beans in Bangalore that can grow into a giant bean-stalk. And we usually don’t remember the first part of the story, where Jack’s mother sent him off to the market to sell a cow. In return for the cow, Jack obtained the five magical beans. There may even be an allegory there about transforming Karnataka from an agricultural to tertiary/secondary economy. Remember, even reforming agriculture in Karnataka is easier than in many other states.

The writer is a noted economist

bdebroy@gmail.com