We are a federation of residents welfare associations formally requesting your respected offices for the holistic mobility and infrastructure development in Bengaluru’s IT Hub region of Bellandur and Mahadevapura. The request is of strategic importance for millions in Bengaluru and to overall IT growth sustenance and GDP growth of our country. The associations are citizen advocacy groups of Bellandur development forum (BDEV), Bellandur forum (BF),Citizen Movement Org, Green Glen Residents Association (GGRA), Iblur Environs trust (IBENT), Kasavanahalli development forum(KDF),  covering aspirations of lakhs of residents from Sarjapur Road, Iblur, Haralur, Kasavanahalli, Halanayakanahalli, Devarabeesanahalli, Bellandur, Kaikondrahalli, Chikkanayakanahalli, Doddakanneli and Carmelaram.

Our Petition
There is a lack of Integrated mobility infrastructure in Bengaluru’s IT Hub of Bellandur and Mahadevapura. Even announced projects are delayed due to legislative and policy delays(refer Appendix A,B,D). We request you to review and implement below proposal for the IT Hub of Bellandur:

1. The existing plan of Metro for BTM-KR Puram line needs to be a multi-tier running through Iblur with design and plan to extend this to Carmelaram & Sarjapur eventually. This multi-tier can have design to accommodate metro, public bus transit and passenger vehicles in higher levels while enabling lower level for a well designed pedestrian walk and cycle way. 
   Impact: This will save the Municipal administration of BBMP & State Government in inefficient waste of public money on projects like Haralur underpass and other four junction upgrades in Kaikondrahalli, Junnasandra, Doddakanneli and Carmelaram. This will also mitigate delays in Major road widening works like Sarjapur road. Refer Appendix D.1.
2. Revive and expedite “Iblur Carmelaram” Metro line at the earliest.
   Impact: Over 2-3 lakh commuters will benefit including 3 SEZs and will have a positive ripple effect to suburbs of entire Mahadevapura and Electronic city IT Hubs.
3. Upgrade “Carmelaram” station to a major “Interchange Station”. This is needed given it will also have a Suburban station and currently has inter-state railway lines.                                            Impact: Bangalore “East-South” railway corridor will get a major boost and this would solve the majority of last mile issues in the entire region of Mahadevapura and Electronic City. It has potential to become the second highest footfall terminal after Kempegowda Interchange.
4. DULT(Directorate of Urban Land Transport) should own a holistic mobility plan with “Pedestrian first'' design and enable “Last mile” for Iblur-Krishnarajapuram and Iblur-Carmelaram IT SEZ Corridor commuters. They can collaborate with BMRCL, BBMP, Bangalore Metropolitan Transport corporation(BMTC), Outer Ring Road Companies (ORRCA) to ensure holistic planning and execution. Impact: Overall congestion reduction, improved carbon emissions & citizens health. Refer Appendix E for Iblur junction upgrade proposed, similar long term solution needed for others.

We do hope the citizen’s voice will be heard and acted upon. Thanks in anticipation.

CC: Mr.P. Ravi Kumar Chief Secretary (Karnataka), Mr. Anjum Parwez BMRCL MD, Mr.Gaurav Gupta BBMP Commissioner

Appendix
A. Strategic Importance 
Bellandur is 26.5sqkm area in Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) municipal administration and part of Mahadevapura Zone. This is highly strategic for below reasons:

• It is an Information technology(IT) hub that hosts around eight(8) Information technology Special economic zones(SEZ) in or around its border of the 20 operational(30 notified) SEZs in Bengaluru.(Refer to diagram in Appendix D)
• Mahadevapura IT SEZs(11), Electronic City(2 SEZs) are connected through Bellandur. More than 15 lakh are employed in this IT corridor of Outer Ring Road-Sarjapur Road.
• Of the 80 USD billion IT revenue projected from Bengaluru as of April’21, over 30% may be the estimated contributions by SEZs in Bellandur. In Bangalore development authority’s revised 2031 master plan, the entire Bellandur region is covered as a High-tech corridor.
• Bellandur and its surrounding wards are growing with “Unplanned urbanization” with 110% year-on-year growth in terms of population, highest compared to any other region of Bangalore.

In summary, lack of mobility infrastructure may lead this region losing the IT Hub status with significant monetary and opportunity cost impact to Indian GDP, Growth story. 

B. Mobility & Infrastructure GAP
All the “Strategic” importance given to this area are “on paper” and talking points for pride and debate as no major projects have been executed in the last 10+ years. In 2020, Bengaluru was rated as the worst congested city in the world by TomTom traffic analysis. 2 of the top 5 congestions are in Bellandur, Outer ring road and Sarjapur Road. Below are more details to justify why we don't see any relief sooner.

• All the major roads infrastructure connecting these SEZs and key residential areas of Haralur, Kasavanahalli, Sarjapur road, Doddakanneli, Carmelaram are NOT compliant with the BBMP Municipality’s “Comprehensive Development Plan 2015”. However, residential and commercial establishments were approved and are operationalized as per this plan. The roads are taking 5-20 times the load against the designed PCU (passenger car units) capacity.  Many major roads can't even get public bus facilities due to the lack of road infrastructure. The road infrastructure projects have been non-starters because of land acquisition and funds. 
  - Transfer of Development Rights(TDR) as a policy to acquire land has been a huge failure given lack of demand. In absence of TDR Bank, attractive FAR Ratio, Zonal conversions, transparent policy and inability of BBMP to remove illegal FAR built-up ratio from real estate builders, it's hard to get traction on infrastructure projects within BBMP limits.
  - Land acquisition budget isn't feasible as per the government. On 21st Sep '21, Hon.CM Mr.Basavaraja Bommai in question hour quoted 1580 Cr as cost to acquire and widen “Sarjapur road”. Again, unlike many states, a practical “Land acquisition” reform is pending in Karnataka.
• Lack of Holistic Planning by Metro Rail for the Region
  BTM-Iblur-Krishnaraja Puram Metro Rail works is the FIRST large-scale infrastructure project for this region in the past 10+ years which is about to kick-off. This Metro rail will be going through Iblur(Bellandur) and will enable mass transit connectivity to 5 of the 8 SEZs. This is already riddled in delays (2024) and DOES NOT cover holistic regional mobility plans.
• The Metro Phase 3B plan of connecting Iblur to Carmelaram is scrapped “indefinitely” that would have otherwise connected pending 3 SEZs with seating capacity of over 100,000 IT employees.
• SubUrban railways hasn’t seen the light of the day. The Sub urban mass transit would connect the train stations of Bellandur and Carmelaram area which would serve the SEZ zones but once again the project kickoff will happen only in December 2021 with 2-3 years to operationalize. Suburban is also riddled with land acquisition issues and already delayed by decades (Appendix D map link).
• The ​​National Urban Transport Policy (NUTP, 2006) recommendation of Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority Bill is NOT yet passed by the Karnataka legislature. We see the Directorate of Urban Land transport(DULT), BBMP and Bangalore Metro Corporation(BMRCL) rolling out isolated junction upgrades, bus priority lanes,cycle lane plans, hence the overall goal to enable last mile transit is missing. The UMTA bill is scheduled to be passed in 2021 or 2022.

C. References 
Below are the requests/references from the past which were made to address this issue without traction.

Chief Secretary, TAPAL # 11579 dt - 27.10.2018, 
Deputy Chief Minister, Dr.Parameshwariah Grievance Reg # GOVKN/E/2018/00815
BBMP Commissioner, petition dt 10.05.2019, GOVKN/E/2018/00823, GOVKN/E/2018/00817

D. Map of the IT Hub and SEZ Hotspots lacking Holistic Mobility Infrastructure

1. Bellandur - Sarjapur Road High Tech SEZs(3)  - Google Map link

2. Bellandur - Outer Ring Road Tech SEZs (5) - Google Map link                             

3. Image reference

E. Proposed Plan for major roads ORR/ Sarjapur Iblur Junction Upgrade

1. Design

2. Elevation