What ails industrial estates?

Y. Maheshwara Reddy | NT

A tweet by a startup founder on Bengaluru’s poor infrastructure has once again sparked a debate on the city’s poor roads and unusable footpaths. A reply to the tweet by a Telangana minister inviting the entrepreneur to move to Hyderabad has upset the government. Politics apart, the fact remains that a lot needs to be done to improve the city’s infrastructure. Entrepreneurs who operate out of industrial clusters like Peenya claim though they pay crores in terms of taxes, not even a fraction of it is spent on improving the infrastructure in these estates. Y. Maheswara Reddy reports.

Karnataka is known for its vibrant industries rang-ing from the old economy sectors such as automo-bile, agro, aerospace, textile, heavy industries and garment to new-age industries like software and bio-tech. The state gets tax revenue of more than Rs 1 lakh crore from these industries.

Though Karnataka, especially  Bengaluru, is said to be a hub of  industries, many industrialists are  not happy with the infrastructure  that the city has on offer. Recently,  Ravish Naresh, a start-up founder  said that startups in Bengaluru’s  Koramangala and HSR areas were  paying billions of dollars in taxes  but continued to reel under infra- structure problems such as bad  roads, unusable footpaths, and an  airport that takes three hours to  reach during peak hours.

In reaction, Telangana minis- ter K Tarakarama Rao (known  as KTR) invited Ravish Naresh  to Hyderabad and this invitation  has provoked KPCC president to  promise that if Congress returns  to power in Karnataka, it will help  the state regain its lost glory. An  upset Chief Minister Basavaraj  Bommai described KTR’s tweet as  ridiculous. He asserted that people  from all over the world are coming  down to Bengaluru which is home  to the highest number of startups  and unicorns.

However, many industrialists  feel a lot needs to be done in terms  of providing basic infrastructure at  industrial estates, which is almost  non-existent, and upgrade infra- structure where it is in a pathetic  condition.

The other major grouse is the un- scheduled power cuts. Though Ben- galuru Electricity Supply Company  (Bescom) authorities have been  claiming that there would be no  power outages, industrialists are  apprehensive about the unsched- uled disruption in power supply.

According to Satish Nagaraj, former chairman of industry com-mittee, Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce and In-dustry (FKCCI) had suggested the state government to emulate Guja-rat model and take up maintenance work by the Bescom in coordina-tion with industries. “The electric-ity supply companies in Gujarat inform industrialists about the schedule of maintenance work in advance. It will enable the industri-alists to declare that particular day holiday or to take up maintenance work inside the industrial units. It will ensure quality power sup-ply and avoid loss of man-hours,” Nagaraj said.

He recalled that many industri-alists, during an industrial adalat, were in favour of a weekly holiday for industries to enable the Bescom authorities to take up maintenance work.Emphasising the need to better manage vehicular traffic in the city, Karnataka Small Scale Industries Association past president R Raju has said that it is an ordeal for peo-ple to go from one end of the city to other. “The authorities have to de-velop and upgrade infrastructure on par with the growth of popula-tion and vehicles in the city. There will be no use in constructing roads if the vehicular traffic is not man-aged properly,” Raju said.An industrialist has said that reaching Bengaluru International Airport has become a Herculean task during peak hours.

“We have to pass through many traffic junc-tions known for traffic jams before reaching the elevated corridor af-ter the Hebbal flyover. It needs 10 to 15 minutes to reach the other side of Hebbal flyover during the peak hours,” the industrialist said.