Bengaluru: Karnataka Minister Krishna Byre Gowda on Friday directed all departments connected with the city to significantly improve coordination and jointly plan infrastructure works so that projects are executed efficiently without repeated disruption to public life.
The Greater Bengaluru development minister said a common digital dashboard would be developed to map roads, utilities and civic works, enabling coordinated planning, greater transparency and citizen reporting.
Gowda convened the second meeting of the Greater Bengaluru Authority executive committee, bringing together the heads of all major civic and infrastructure agencies to institutionalise coordinated planning and execution of urban development projects aimed at resolving the city’s long-standing civic coordination challenges.
The executive committee, constituted under the GBA Act, was created to address one of Bengaluru’s most persistent governance challenges—the lack of coordination among multiple civic agencies responsible for roads, water supply, electricity, public transport, metro, suburban rail and urban infrastructure.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Gowda said Bengaluru had suffered for decades because departments worked independently, often resulting in duplication of work, repeated road cutting, avoidable expenditure of public funds and inconvenience to citizens.
“People have been asking for better coordination among civic agencies for over three decades. The executive committee has been established to provide an institutional and permanent solution to this long-standing problem,” he said.
Gowda announced that coordination meetings, mandated once every two months under the GBA Act, would be convened more frequently whenever necessary to ensure continuous monitoring and quicker decision-making.
The executive committee comprises senior officials from all key agencies, such as the five city corporations, BWSSB, BESCOM, BMTC, BMRCL (Metro), BDA, K-RIDE, Traffic Police, Fire and Emergency Services, and other departments whose decisions directly influence Bengaluru’s civic infrastructure.
The minister said one of the major decisions taken during the meeting was the development of a unified GIS-based digital platform that would integrate information relating to roads, road history, utilities, streetlights and ongoing infrastructure works across departments.
All civic agencies have been instructed to upload details of their proposed works and action plans onto the common platform before execution, he said.
“The platform will also enable citizens to report civic issues such as potholes and monitor the progress of corrective action, significantly improving transparency, accountability and coordination across departments.”
Gowda observed that many newly laid roads are often dug up within months because departments function without adequate information-sharing.
The integrated platform is expected to minimise such instances through planning and inter-departmental coordination.
While acknowledging that institutional reforms take time, Gowda emphasised that lasting improvements require not only new systems but also a change in administrative culture.
He said the objective is to replace silo-based functioning with collaborative governance, where departments work together in the larger public interest rather than in isolation.
Officials were instructed to share project timelines well in advance so that utility works, road construction and other civic projects can be synchronised, reducing repeated excavation, inconvenience to citizens and wasteful expenditure, he added.
The minister also reviewed the progress of the ongoing 'safe footpath campaign', stating that approximately 141 kilometres of encroached footpaths had already been cleared during the first two days of the drive.
He reiterated that the campaign currently covers only around 20 per cent of Bengaluru’s arterial and sub-arterial road network, where pedestrian movement is the highest, while commercial activity and street vending may continue on the remaining roads in accordance with the law.
Emphasising that pedestrian safety remains the government’s foremost priority, he noted that hundreds of pedestrians lose their lives in road accidents every year after being forced onto carriageways because footpaths are blocked or unusable.
“The objective is not to affect livelihoods but to ensure that every citizen can walk safely. Public safety and public rights must remain paramount,” he added.
The minister said that the initiative is being implemented in accordance with the directions of the Supreme Court and reflects the unanimous view expressed by elected representatives across political parties that Bengaluru’s busiest roads must provide safe and obstruction-free pedestrian movement.
Gowda said improving Bengaluru requires both institutional reforms and collective civic responsibility.