Bengaluru is ‘woefully short of roads’: Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw on comparisons with Delhi

Bengaluru-based entrepreneur and Biocon chairperson Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw on Monday reignited the debate on urban infrastructure after sharing a stark comparison of road lengths and vehicle numbers across six Indian cities.

The graphic, posted on X, shows Delhi with 32,000 km of roads and 154 lakh vehicles, while Bengaluru trails with 12,878 km of roads and 120 lakh vehicles—the second-highest vehicle count despite a far smaller network.

“We are woefully short of roads,” Shaw captioned the image, sparking a flurry of reactions that questioned the premise and offered broader critiques of mobility planning. The billionaire entrepreneur, however, did not share the source of the data.

One user countered: “Again, a wrong comparison, Delhi is a state while Bangalore is a city. If you add Lal Dora village roads, the picture changes. Both need wider, encroachment-free roads.” Others argued that the crisis runs deeper than asphalt. “We’re drowning in private cars and starving for decent public transport. No amount of asphalt can outrun exponential vehicle growth. The fix isn’t wider roads; it’s hard caps on new registrations, ruthless congestion pricing, and traffic systems that punish single-occupancy metal boxes instead of rewarding them.”

Another pointed to fiscal irony: “So we have the second most cars in the nation. Imagine the road tax revenue—yet the government claims it can’t maintain 12,000 km of roads. Wrong. Bengaluru needs to move people, not vehicles.”