After Bengaluru grappled with unprecedented waterlogging in areas near Sarjapur and Outer Ring Road in August last year, the Karnataka state government considered various solutions to ease the pressure on the city arising out of infrastructural failure and unplanned development.
One possibility that emerged was the building of five high-tech satellite towns about 20-30 km away from the city centre. Bengaluru is also mulling underground road networks to ease the city’s traffic woes, development minister and deputy chief minister DK Shivakumar said after meeting several business leaders on June 19.
Such attempts at de-urbanisation, according to experts, can help Bengaluru with its infrastructure issues. But they must be carefully managed, unlike current satellite towns that have become isolated real estate clusters.
What are satellite towns?
Satellite towns are small, mixed-development clusters located away from a metropolitan city but well-connected to the city centre. Such urban models are self-contained clusters with job-creating economic capacity – people live and work in these townships and they don’t have to travel to the city daily.
"Germany, which is the size of Karnataka, has been split into multiple towns. And each town has its own unique industrial and economic speciality,” said Rahul Kadri of IMK Architects. “We don't want to create another metropolitan city that will create a whole new chunk of problems like municipal issues and infrastructural failure that Bengaluru is currently facing."
Ideally, experts pointed out, satellite towns would have their own social infrastructure so that residents have everything available within the cluster. Additionally, each town would be well-connected to the metropolitan city with a high-speed public transport system.
Such connectivity ensures that the township is part of the city’s governance, including local municipal works. Additionally, affordable land prices will attract investments and help to boost inexpensive housing.
Every new satellite town should also encourage commercial/industrial development, alongside residential, to avoid long commutes and enhance sustainable mobility, said BV Anand, a former member of the Karnataka state policy and planning commission.
According to several research papers, satellite towns not only help to decongest the city by relocating residents sustainably, they also promote the economy by attracting investments with proper resource utilisation.
Doesn’t Bengaluru already have satellite towns?
Currently, two townships are considered satellites of Bengaluru – Kengeri on the southwestern corridor along the Mysuru Road and Yelahanka in the north. Several satellite cities were proposed in the 1950s, including Dobbspet on the way to Tumakuru, Chandapura on the route to Hosur, and Hoskote, on the road to Kolar.
While metro connectivity has brought down travel time to Kengeri to 30 minutes, other seamless integrated public transport like buses and autorickshaws remain a concern. Yelahanka has already been integrated into the city and is no longer considered a satellite town.
Today, Anand said, almost all of the proposed satellite towns have become integral parts of the city and Bengaluru has lost 830 sq. km of green belt on the outskirts that had acted as a buffer zone.
Jaya Dhindaw, programme director of integrated urban development, planning and resilience at WRI India, explained that one of the reasons Kengeri failed to pick up as a satellite town was the absence of a self-contained economy where the consumption and production remain balanced. This has led to people travelling 20 km to the city looking for jobs, she added.
However, Anand doesn’t consider Kengeri a failure. According to him, economic development there took over two decades, so much so that it failed in its purpose as a satellite town.
For Bengaluru, considered the Silicon Valley of India, the major job-creating sector or the IT corridors are largely located on the eastern side in Whitefield or towards the north in Hebbal. Grade A office spaces are located close to the central business district or in the east.
Does Bengaluru need more satellite towns?
If de-centralisation is the need of the hour, satellite towns can help shift development pressure away from Bengaluru. However, this can happen only after meeting specific urban planning conditions.
Upcoming satellite towns, experts said, must be planned properly for economic growth, social infrastructure like schools and colleges, and transportation, without leaving it to the real estate sector to plan the development.
Making such clusters inclusive hubs is integral for attracting commercial investments and the residential segment.
However, Dhindaw said leaving Bengaluru for prospective greenfield developments might end up in disaster. Attempts by the state government to relocate part of the city’s population to Mysuru with IT investments failed.
"People keep saying Bengaluru is overcrowded. However, that is entirely wrong," Dhindaw said. "If we look at how much of the floor-area-ratio we have consumed, we have not even utilised most of it provided in the 2015 Revised Master Plan."
Today, transit-oriented development policies can be crucial to evenly densify the city with improved mobility and liveability. Transit-oriented development aims to concentrate jobs, housing, and services around public transport stations.
"The government should come up with a new township policy to expedite the satellite towns and city extensions more sustainably and, most importantly, to attract investments. I have even written about this in the Karnataka Economic Survey 2022. However, it remains to be implemented," Anand added.
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