In what is being lauded as a much needed 'investment', Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa announced a mega project to revamp capital city Bengaluru by the 75th Indian Independence Day in 2022.

A comprehensive plan to reclaim the green spaces of a metropolis that was once called 'Garden City', among other projects, was announced by Yediyurappa last week.

"Increasing green cover & air quality will lead to an overall improvement in quality of life. Revitalisation of the lakes & Raja Kaluve network along with improved utilisation of rainwater and grey water across Bengaluru will address the SWD problem", tweeted Yediyurappa.

The two-year project intends to 'revitalise' the city and is driven by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of urban development, that seeks to achieve a paradigm shift in the country's urban landscape with cleaner and greener cities.

The blueprint drawn by the government addresses four challenges the city faces, namely:

1. Enabling a faster commute

2. Enabling Swachha Bengaluru

3. Hasiru Bengaluru

4. Connecting citizens to the city

In order to ease commuting, the Mission has lined up construction of 12 high-density corridors totalling 190 km that will be taken up in 'mission mode by KRDCL', accelerated completion of smart-city roads, annual maintenance contracts for arterial roads that total 400 km in length, stone paintings and lane-marking to enhance road appearance apart from the installation of synchronous signal lights.

To enhance mobility, the two-year plan intends to promote shared electric vehicle mobility across the city, faster metro completion, expanding bus priority lanes, and the operationalisation of suburban rail to ease traffic and reduce pollution.

On the cleanliness front too, especially in a city whose waste management woes have only been rising, the mission has a five-point agenda.

In association with citizens, it aims to undertake the following steps to 'enhance the efficiency of waste disposal' —

1. Specialised entity for waste management for end-to-end professional management of municipal solid waste.

2. Rehabilitate and refurbish existing processing plants to operate at optimum capacity.

3. Guide and monitor solid waste collection and transportation by leveraging technology.

4. Remediate and rehabilitate legacy dump sites.

5. Plan, design and implement model recovery facility.

6. Citizen participation programmes through trained SWM trainers and 'Shuchi mitras'

7. Setting up kalika kendras or learning centres, in each zone, for information on composting and zero waste homes.

8. Encouraging in-house processing of wet waste through local buy-back centres for compost.

In order to address the issue of vanishing lung spaces and water bodies that have, in the recent decades, been reduced to foam and fire-spouting swamps, the mission has provisions for the restoration of 25 lakes in Bengaluru.

Apart from this, the mission also has waterway beautification of the Raja Kaluve as a task, real-time monitoring of water quality in 20 lakes, boosting of biodiversity around the lakes as well as enhancing water quality.

"We will conduct inspections once in six months and make sure that all the works planned are completed within the given time-frame. Budget will be allocated for all works planned," Yediyurappa said.

The mission also aims to provide a unified citizen-connect portal to provide citizen services as well as to address public grievances. Along with these, the portal will also provide road history information, location-aware information on civic services among others.

A cultural melting pot, the city, as envisioned by the mission, would also host a Bengaluru Culture, Heritage and Crafts Museum at NGEF that will also host spaces and events for artists, artisans and creative professionals.