Bangalore 'stagnating', Wipro to spread wings

July 24, 2004 09:38 IST

Wipro Ltd, after witnessing an increase in attrition and on the lack of good infrastructure that has resulted in increased commuting time for its employees, is now looking at growth beyond Bangalore. Currently, Wipro has 11,000 employees in Bangalore alone.

"Bangalore is a zero-sum game. In terms of infrastructure, there has not been any material improvement in the last five years. As a result, it is becoming difficult to sustain growth here. As part of our retention management, we want to move for an incremental growth outside Bangalore as much as possible," Vivek Paul, vice-chairman, said.

Centres that will receive increased focus include Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Gurgaon, Powai, Kolkata and Kochi.

According to Azim H Premji, chairman, "We are starting our operations in Kolkata from next month. We will start with taking new accounts as well as shifting some existing accounts to this centre.

"We are going to be setting up centres outside Bangalore rapidly as we go along. The key reasons include increased commuting time and high attrition.

"Qualified engineers and graduates are coming up in other cities and states. We will take our business wherever there is opportunity for our employees. The reality is that there is opportunity outside Karnataka and outside Bangalore. We have to be present where talent is available and infrastructure is superior."

Wipro feels that expanding to other cities will help it to reduce attrition and also manage increasing wage pressures.

The company factored a wage pressure in the range of 15-18 per cent in its first quarter results. It is yet to finalise the wage increase for the IT business for the current fiscal.

"However, one way to compensate wages is by hiring younger engineers so that the average wage bill continues to be contained," Paul said.

Wipro hired 3015 people during the first quarter, taking its total headcount to 31,517 by the end of June 30, 2004, including 20,768 engineers in the IT services business and 10,749 people in IT-enabled services.

IT: Is Bangalore losing out to Chennai?

July 23, 2004 13:46 IST


Is Bangalore, India's Silicon Valley and home for some of the biggest information technology firms in the country, slowly losing out to Chennai?

It seems so, considering the investment plans of leading IT companies including Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, HCL Technologies and MNC IT giants such as Cognizant, Covansys, Ford Information Technology, Xansa, Verizon, iSoft etc.

Consider this. TCS, India's top IT company, will have the biggest development centre at Chennai employing 8,000 software professionals over the next one and half year period, relegating its Mumbai centre, which employs about 6,000 people, to second place.

Infosys Technologies, which was instrumental in giving Bangalore its current status in the world IT map, is also entering Chennai in a big way. Cognizant's Chennai centre now employs more than 5,000 and the company has committed another Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion) for a second techno-complex on the IT Corridor here.

"I am very bullish on the growth of software in Tamil Nadu," Vivek Harinarain, the state IT secretary, said.

He said the state was readying another four million sq.ft of additional space for IT and software companies soon, which could accommodate about 20,000 software professionals.

In terms of exports, Tamil Nadu's Rs 8,100 crore (Rs 81 billion) worth software exports in 2003-04 is not even half the exports figure of Karnataka at Rs 19,400 crore (Rs 194 billion).

Maharashtra at Rs 9,982 crore (Rs 99.82 billion) is placed second among the states in software exports.

However, analysts believe it was only a matter of time before Chennai outscores Maharashtra and even Karnataka over a longer term.

"Chennai is cheaper by a huge margin compared to Bangalore. Besides, here we get reliable and stable workforce, compared to Bangalore, where there is a huge floating population," said an official with a real-estate tracking firm.

This explains why TCS, known as a Mumbai firm, is setting up its largest development centre in Chennai. "We will employ about 8,000 software professionals in Chennai," said TCS vice-president (corporate communication) Atul Takle.

Mahindra City, near Chennai, will establish the world's largest software development centre, which can house 25,000 software professionals over a period of time.

Cognizant was among the first to realise the city's potential.

"When we decided to set up our development centre in India, it was a ding-dong choice between Bangalore and Chennai. The pendulum veered in favour of Chennai for the 'ecosystem' it enjoyed," said R.Chandrasekhar, managing director and executive vice-president, Cognizant.

Xansa, another MNC IT firm, has set-up its development centre here spread over 27 acres with a capacity to house about 6,000 professionals.

For other large players such as Office Tiger, Sutherland, iNautix, World Bank, Covansys, Scope, Temenos, Spryance, iSoft, Lason and Ajuba, the city houses their largest operations in India.

And for those such as EDS, Syntel and Hewlett Packard, their Chennai development centre is the second largest or the most promising growth centre in India.

Similarly, for Satyam and HCL Technologies, Chennai is their second largest development base. Analysts said frontline IT companies such as Wipro, Patni and i-Flex are also significantly expanding their development base in the city.

"It is not just that these players have a mere presence in Chennai. Their operations in the city is the largest or the second largest in India or in the world," said an analyst.

The city's attractiveness is attributed to its 'ecosystem' -- the culture of educating people and the resultant quality of education, work ethics, access to international airports, mix of the conventional and the cosmopolitan, proposed connectivity through submarine landing station, international schools etc, he said.

"For us, cost was a major factor," said V Srinivasan, managing director & CEO of ICICI Infotech, which has its biggest development centre in Chennai, employing 350 people.

I am biased but ..I wish this is true ! ;)

If not for a certain politician who was not farsigted in her initial phases in TN politics things would have been even different

A 1000 acre new IT park is being built near Chennai at Siruseri at the cost of 16 lakhs per acre. This is in relative proximity to the existing Tidel park and this entire area is to be developed into a IT corridor in Chennai.

http://www.tamilnadunri.com/tn/infrastructure/park/siruseri_it_park.htm

The good news is the Govt is also building a good transportation facility, good housing etc around the area meaning a whole new town is in the process of being made !! So it is not just the IT gurus who are getting benefited.. but a whoole range of people and the general name of the city aswell !

The MRTS which is being constructed runs right near these parts and would be a great asset in the long run. The phase 3 of the MRTS would take it right next to the Tidel Park and all the way to the International airport which is not too far off anyway

http://www.urbanrail.net/as/chen/chennai-map.gif

http://www.chennaionline.com/cityfeature/Chennai/Images/mrts-03.jpg


http://www.chennaionline.com/cityfeature/Chennai/Images/mrts-07.jpg


http://www.chennaionline.com/cityfeature/Chennai/Images/mrts-09.jpg

http://www.geocities.com/nsridhar74/MRTS-Thirumailai1.jpg

http://www.geocities.com/nsridhar74/MRTS-Thirumailai3.jpg


more info.. http://www.urbanrail.net/as/chen/chennai.htm

Also a IT expressway is being constructed..

'State Government wanted to have a world-class urban expressway with well-maintained landscaping on the corridor. In the first phase, the TNRDC would take up the 20-km stretch starting from the Madhya Kailash junction to Siruseri. In the second phase, the road from Siruseri to Mahabalipuram would be developed.

The corridor would be developed as a toll road and to global standards. Of the Rs. 100 crores estimated for the first phase, Rs. 30 crores would be spent on converting overhead cables running through the corridor into underground ones. The Corporation would also set up a bayside park on a three-acre plot. The park would be constructed with public and private participation'... 'the corridor would have six-lane traffic and would be connected with the East Coast road. It would have service ducts, cross ducts and provision for bus bays and shelters for passengers.

The corridor would see major developments and initiatives such as Phase I of the New IT Park (five-lakh sq ft), the TIDCO Centre for Life Science (in technical collaboration with Cornell University, U.S.), Telemedicine facility by Apollo Hospitals, engineering colleges and institutions. In addition, companies such as Wipro, Infosys, TCS, Polaris and Cognizant, would be located on this corridor. The Government was also marketing the corridor to hardware and software companies

( source THe Hindu 040404 )

Good times ahead for Chennai ! :)

Wonderful stuff for Chennai........right now the city is just too bland and boring. :bash:

Wonderful stuff for Chennai........right now the city is just too bland and boring. :bash:

Why do you think I am in London ? :bleh:

Why do you think I am in London ? :bleh:
Same reason i'm in Mumbai? :tongue3:

is dharmendra here?

Are you a big fan of Dharmendra?

are you?

Wonderful stuff for Chennai........right now the city is just too bland and boring. :bash:

Actually things are changing.. fast

DESTINATION CHENNAI by Anuradha Sriraman at chennaibest.com

Its strong presence in both the old and the emerging knowledge-based economies has made Chennai a vibrant hub in the region. From automobiles to software, from dotcoms to retailing, it's all happening in Chennai. And the mood of optimism on the business front has filtered its way through to the Chennaite's lifestyle, which has undergone an unbelievable transformation.

What makes Chennai one of the most preferred destinations today?

Infrastructure

Except for the weather, most people seem to agree that things are improving in the city; in terms of civic amenities and infrastructure (what with the 9 flyovers, privatised collection and disposal of garbage and improved street lighting)."We have the most developed infrastructure, as compared to other cities in India. Chennai is the natural gateway to the world.", says S.Mahalingam, Executive Vice-President, TCS.

Chennai Telephones is the largest revenue earner for the Department of Telecom (DoT) in India. Telephone connectivity has touched one million in 2000. All the exchanges have become electronic and all pending applications have been cleared.

More than a dozen international flights cover Chennai. The existing capacity at the international airport is 0.9 million a year. International traffic is projected to grow at 15.6% per annum. Exports through Chennai by air in 1991-92 was Rs 1,193 crore. This touched Rs 3,978 crore in 1999-00.

Exports through Chennai by sea in 1991-92 was Rs 3,343 crore. This touched Rs 12,320 crore in 1999-00.

The Ford Motor Company decided to put up its plant in Chennai clearly because, when it came to the practical issues of ports, electricity supply, water and other services that were required, Chennai ranked ahead of other cities.

Manpower

Tamil Nadu churns out 32,000 engineering graduates every year, including 15,000 in computer science and software engineering. Institutional infrastructure and quality of manpower has become world class, particularly in IT and Biotechnology. According to S.Mahalingam, Executive Vice-President, TCS, " Chennai is the home of Institutions and traditionally has been a great learning place". Chennai and suburbs have about 29 engineering colleges including IIT, MIT and Anna University.


Investments are coming in because of the availability of a highly talented workforce. When asked about why Ford chose to put up its plant in Chennai, Phil Spender, MD, Ford India had this to say, "Because we could find and attract a very good work force here. Tamil Nadu has very talented people. Very capable and enthusiastic".

Information Technology

Chennai has the largest number of software professionals in the country. The number of software firms has increased from 34 in 1996 to 596 in 2000. Software exports has risen from Rs 37 crore to Rs 1,890 crore during the same period, with a targeted software export of Rs 8,000 crore and hardware export of Rs 5,000 crore. It has about 1 lakh internet connections, 4 lakh net users and the largest number of cybercafes, 600 at last count.

The Rs 338 crore Tidel Park, is the largest Information Technology park in Asia, with a built-up space of 1.28 million square feet. The Government has also recognised IT as a thrust area and is cooperating with the industry for further growth and development.

Retailing

According to B.K.Anand, Associate Vice-President, Jainsons, "Chennai is the Retail King of India. The retail market is heavily concentrated in Chennai. As far as the consumer durables market is concerned all changes take off from Chennai. Customers here take informed decisions. They do a lot of survey and analysis before buying a product".

Most experts put this sudden surge of retail in Chennai to the easy availability of commercial space and transparency in real-estate transactions. According to Pradipta K. Mohapatra (RPG), the man who gave momentum to the retail revolution in Chennai with Food World, Music World, Health & Glow and other such mass-retailing models, "Any retail revolution is driven by the middle class". With most members of this class getting into careers in the new economy, purchasing power has improved.

The average Chennaite was usually happy to invest his disposable income in fixed deposits and watch his bank balances grow. But even as he comes of age in choosing a profession, which belongs to the booming knowledge-based sector, he has more disposable income in hand and his spending habits have changed drastically. Once labeled 'price-sensitive', the Chennai customer is today being referred to as 'value conscious'.

Lifestyle

Also the cultural hot seat in India, Chennai is not only mass producing young Carnatic musicians, its also becoming open to contemporary forms of art, as witnessed during the recently held "The Other Festival".

The booming retail scene along with the shopping complexes, coffee pubs, exclusive clubs, bowling alleys, golf courses, pool parlours, discotheques, beach resorts and theme parks have redefined the concept of entertainment in the city.

Thanks to the rise in the number of MNCs that have come into Chennai (Ford, Hyundai, Mitsubishi, Matsushita, Caltex, St Gobain, Henkel, HLL, ST CMS, Alsthom, PSEG, Unocol, Chevron, Alcatel, Visteon, Caterpillar, Van Melle), there is a sudden surge in expats from Korea, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, US, Australia, UK and Europe. This in turn has given rise to a number of multi-cuisine restaurants and speciality cuisine restaurants, providing the bored middle class with multiple options, apart from the usual movies and of course the Marina beach. MNC food outlets and concepts like restaurant-cum-boutique/art gallery (Annalakshmi, Whistle-stop-cafe, Earth Bazaar, Pizza Hut, Marry Brown and Qwiky's) are finding increasing acceptance. Pizza Corner has successfully blown away the myth that the Chennaite's taste-buds were not ready for change.

And though Chennai may not be on par with Mumbai, Delhi or Bangalore when it comes to fashion, there is a growing awareness of the latest trends. According to Althea and Jyotsna of Sunita's Design Studio, " People are a lot more figure-conscious than they were before. They have dropped their inhibitions and are more eager to try out new styles". Several beauty clinics, gyms and fitness institutes like VLCC and Pivot Point, have enthused not only the younger generation, but also the conservative kutchery-going housewife. And people are now willing to throw open their wallets to alternative fitness solutions like Reiki, Transcendental Meditation and Yoga.

Another impetus for the changing lifestyle is the the awareness created by the numerous Television channels - 10 regional channels at last count; the maximum for any state in the country. We even have a Tamil version of Cartoon Network programmes, and on the cards is a Tamil version of the popular Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC).


Medicine

Chennai is renowned for its state-of-the-art hospitals and for some of the most famous doctors in the country. Standing examples are the Madras Medical Mission (headed by one of the best cardiac surgeons in the world - Dr K M Cherian), Apollo Hospitals (that has the country's "who's who" list of Medical experts on board), Shankar Netralaya (the first eye hospital in Asia to receive the ISO-9002 certification) and M. V. Diabetes Specialities Centre (again the first ISO-9002 certified Diabetes Centre).

Overall, there is what they call "a feel-good-factor" about Chennai, as a happening place. But as Jayaram Krishnan and Ramkumar of Kaashyap Radiant put it: "We (Chennai) have been steady and stable in our growth. But we are lagging behind in marketing ourselves properly. We are not matching up when it comes to hype".

Throw in the hype, and Chennai will, in all probability, give the rest a run for their money.

:)

Actually things are changing.. fast

DESTINATION CHENNAI by Anuradha Sriraman at chennaibest.com

Its strong presence in both the old and the emerging knowledge-based economies has made Chennai a vibrant hub in the region. From automobiles to software, from dotcoms to retailing, it's all happening in Chennai. And the mood of optimism on the business front has filtered its way through to the Chennaite's lifestyle, which has undergone an unbelievable transformation.

What makes Chennai one of the most preferred destinations today?

Infrastructure

Except for the weather, most people seem to agree that things are improving in the city; in terms of civic amenities and infrastructure (what with the 9 flyovers, privatised collection and disposal of garbage and improved street lighting)."We have the most developed infrastructure, as compared to other cities in India. Chennai is the natural gateway to the world.", says S.Mahalingam, Executive Vice-President, TCS.

Chennai Telephones is the largest revenue earner for the Department of Telecom (DoT) in India. Telephone connectivity has touched one million in 2000. All the exchanges have become electronic and all pending applications have been cleared.

More than a dozen international flights cover Chennai. The existing capacity at the international airport is 0.9 million a year. International traffic is projected to grow at 15.6% per annum. Exports through Chennai by air in 1991-92 was Rs 1,193 crore. This touched Rs 3,978 crore in 1999-00.

Exports through Chennai by sea in 1991-92 was Rs 3,343 crore. This touched Rs 12,320 crore in 1999-00.

The Ford Motor Company decided to put up its plant in Chennai clearly because, when it came to the practical issues of ports, electricity supply, water and other services that were required, Chennai ranked ahead of other cities.

Manpower

Tamil Nadu churns out 32,000 engineering graduates every year, including 15,000 in computer science and software engineering. Institutional infrastructure and quality of manpower has become world class, particularly in IT and Biotechnology. According to S.Mahalingam, Executive Vice-President, TCS, " Chennai is the home of Institutions and traditionally has been a great learning place". Chennai and suburbs have about 29 engineering colleges including IIT, MIT and Anna University.


Investments are coming in because of the availability of a highly talented workforce. When asked about why Ford chose to put up its plant in Chennai, Phil Spender, MD, Ford India had this to say, "Because we could find and attract a very good work force here. Tamil Nadu has very talented people. Very capable and enthusiastic".

Information Technology

Chennai has the largest number of software professionals in the country. The number of software firms has increased from 34 in 1996 to 596 in 2000. Software exports has risen from Rs 37 crore to Rs 1,890 crore during the same period, with a targeted software export of Rs 8,000 crore and hardware export of Rs 5,000 crore. It has about 1 lakh internet connections, 4 lakh net users and the largest number of cybercafes, 600 at last count.

The Rs 338 crore Tidel Park, is the largest Information Technology park in Asia, with a built-up space of 1.28 million square feet. The Government has also recognised IT as a thrust area and is cooperating with the industry for further growth and development.

Retailing

According to B.K.Anand, Associate Vice-President, Jainsons, "Chennai is the Retail King of India. The retail market is heavily concentrated in Chennai. As far as the consumer durables market is concerned all changes take off from Chennai. Customers here take informed decisions. They do a lot of survey and analysis before buying a product".

Most experts put this sudden surge of retail in Chennai to the easy availability of commercial space and transparency in real-estate transactions. According to Pradipta K. Mohapatra (RPG), the man who gave momentum to the retail revolution in Chennai with Food World, Music World, Health & Glow and other such mass-retailing models, "Any retail revolution is driven by the middle class". With most members of this class getting into careers in the new economy, purchasing power has improved.

The average Chennaite was usually happy to invest his disposable income in fixed deposits and watch his bank balances grow. But even as he comes of age in choosing a profession, which belongs to the booming knowledge-based sector, he has more disposable income in hand and his spending habits have changed drastically. Once labeled 'price-sensitive', the Chennai customer is today being referred to as 'value conscious'.

Lifestyle

Also the cultural hot seat in India, Chennai is not only mass producing young Carnatic musicians, its also becoming open to contemporary forms of art, as witnessed during the recently held "The Other Festival".

The booming retail scene along with the shopping complexes, coffee pubs, exclusive clubs, bowling alleys, golf courses, pool parlours, discotheques, beach resorts and theme parks have redefined the concept of entertainment in the city.

Thanks to the rise in the number of MNCs that have come into Chennai (Ford, Hyundai, Mitsubishi, Matsushita, Caltex, St Gobain, Henkel, HLL, ST CMS, Alsthom, PSEG, Unocol, Chevron, Alcatel, Visteon, Caterpillar, Van Melle), there is a sudden surge in expats from Korea, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, US, Australia, UK and Europe. This in turn has given rise to a number of multi-cuisine restaurants and speciality cuisine restaurants, providing the bored middle class with multiple options, apart from the usual movies and of course the Marina beach. MNC food outlets and concepts like restaurant-cum-boutique/art gallery (Annalakshmi, Whistle-stop-cafe, Earth Bazaar, Pizza Hut, Marry Brown and Qwiky's) are finding increasing acceptance. Pizza Corner has successfully blown away the myth that the Chennaite's taste-buds were not ready for change.

And though Chennai may not be on par with Mumbai, Delhi or Bangalore when it comes to fashion, there is a growing awareness of the latest trends. According to Althea and Jyotsna of Sunita's Design Studio, " People are a lot more figure-conscious than they were before. They have dropped their inhibitions and are more eager to try out new styles". Several beauty clinics, gyms and fitness institutes like VLCC and Pivot Point, have enthused not only the younger generation, but also the conservative kutchery-going housewife. And people are now willing to throw open their wallets to alternative fitness solutions like Reiki, Transcendental Meditation and Yoga.

Another impetus for the changing lifestyle is the the awareness created by the numerous Television channels - 10 regional channels at last count; the maximum for any state in the country. We even have a Tamil version of Cartoon Network programmes, and on the cards is a Tamil version of the popular Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC).


Medicine

Chennai is renowned for its state-of-the-art hospitals and for some of the most famous doctors in the country. Standing examples are the Madras Medical Mission (headed by one of the best cardiac surgeons in the world - Dr K M Cherian), Apollo Hospitals (that has the country's "who's who" list of Medical experts on board), Shankar Netralaya (the first eye hospital in Asia to receive the ISO-9002 certification) and M. V. Diabetes Specialities Centre (again the first ISO-9002 certified Diabetes Centre).

Overall, there is what they call "a feel-good-factor" about Chennai, as a happening place. But as Jayaram Krishnan and Ramkumar of Kaashyap Radiant put it: "We (Chennai) have been steady and stable in our growth. But we are lagging behind in marketing ourselves properly. We are not matching up when it comes to hype".

Throw in the hype, and Chennai will, in all probability, give the rest a run for their money.

:)
Chennai has changed a lot off late, and wonderful to see it's still improving so fast. Some of the new places like Spencer Plaza have really changed the city mood. Chennai is indeed very clean too, and re. engineering graduates, that has always been so. I mean just along the Chennai-Sri Perumbudur highway strech, there's a swanky engineering college with a huge campus every half-kilometre! But it's not quite there yet, it's still quite dull and boring.

Chennai has changed a lot off late, and wonderful to see it's still improving so fast. Some of the new places like Spencer Plaza have really changed the city mood. Chennai is indeed very clean too, and re. engineering graduates, that has always been so. I mean just along the Chennai-Sri Perumbudur highway strech, there's a swanky engineering college with a huge campus every half-kilometre! But it's not quite there yet, it's still quite dull and boring.

Well things will take time.. after all Chennai has such a massive middle class and once they wake up things will move even faster. Agreed it has a long way to go to become a truly international city.. but I predict the changes will be fast !

You should have seen Chennai from 20 yrs ago to understand what I am talking about.. :ohno:

Well things will take time.. after all Chennai has such a massive middle class and once they wake up things will move even faster. Agreed it has a long way to go to become a truly international city.. but I predict the changes will be fast !

You should have seen Chennai from 20 yrs ago to understand what I am talking about.. :ohno:
I hope so too. :cheers:

Whatever happened to UB City the project which was launched with alot of fanfare and was supposed to give Bangalore a "real skyline"?

Anyone has any updates?

The project is promoted by the UB group and Prestige Constructions.

http://www.prestigeconstructions.com/ubcity/

This is all they have and a rendering of the development..

One of the largest mixed use developments is all set to rise at the heart of Indias IT capital. UB cITy. In Bangalore. Brought to you by one of Indias largest conglomerates which is also synonymous with Bangalore The UB Group.

Internet-ready, intelligent buildings will demonstrate how chrome, glass and green leaves can seamlessly blend between modern edifices and serene flora. Yet, UB cITy will be just 600 metres away from Bangalores best known hotels, clubs, hospitals and amusement centres will only be a stones throw away. The stock exchange, leading banks and government office will also be within easy reach. Standing tall at the corner of Vittal Mallya Road and Kasturba Road, UB cITy will definitely be an address that will scream to be flaunted. More details on this project will be made available soon.

it must be stopped by the new government in bangalore

When was this launched/announced, whatever?

When was this launched/announced, whatever?

In 2002 I guess. But I saw the latest newsletter of Prestige Constructions and they are still planning!

Then when they finally get around beginning construction, there's always the enviornmentalists....The rendering looked decent.

Then when they finally get around beginning construction, there's always the enviornmentalists....The rendering looked decent.

self declared enviornmentalists :bash:




Here's another piece from the official website. This is old when they thought they would be done by 2005. I think even the partners must have changed.


http://www.ubindia.com/

http://www.ubindia.com/images/Ubnight.jpg


The UB Group will pioneer one of the largest mixed-use developments- UB cITy, in the heart of Bangalore. Yet another trend setting first, amongst the many that have been attributed to the UB Group.

UB cITy will stand tall at the corner of Vittal Mallya Road and Kasturba Road, just 600 meters away from Bangalore's commercial hub, M.G. Road. Its internet ready, intelligent buildings will demonstrate how chrome, glass and green leaves can seamlessly blend between modern edifices and serene flora.
The project will cover a massive ten acres area. Only three acres will be devoted to the development of the ideal workspace within five medium and high rise towers, the rest will be home to refreshing green-scapes to complement the adjacent Cubbon Park.

UB cITy will be a mixed-use development in the truest sense. It will house commercial offices, banks, high-end retail stores, a five star hotel, serviced apartments, restaurants, food courts, pubs, health clubs and cafes. Multi-level parking areas will offer virtually unlimited parking spaces.

The first phase of UB cITy would be ready for occupation in thirty months. An assurance that comes from a pedigreed project team that includes the leading developer in Bangalore- Prestige Estates & Projects Private Ltd, Bangalore's acclaimed architecture firm, Thomas Associate, leading project managers, JTC (India) a part of Singapore's largest property company, Jurong Town Corporation; and India's foremost structural consultants, Sterling Consultants, amongst others. The best people for the biggest mixed-use development ever in Bangalore.

This project is hardly great shakes. Three & half midrise buildings, and UB thinks they will redefine the Bangalore skyline. A load of BS! :bash: Anyways, Hafeez Contractor is designing a project for the group and construction has already started.

hey i seriously do think it will change the skylne

hey chennai is an awesome city the best in indi.
It was bland and boring not anymore
i mean its almost equal with bangalore in terms of hip n happenin stuff
i think in abt 10 yrs it will surpass bangalore in fashion n stuff n all i guess
and in 20 yrs it will surpass mumbai as indias best city
in 30 yrs it will surpass hong kong and singapore as asias best city
and in 40 yrs frm now it will surpass new york as worlds best city
:D :D :D :D :D :D
and i think this is the longest post i have ever typed
:D

hey chennai is an awesome city the best in indi.
It was bland and boring not anymore
i mean its almost equal with bangalore in terms of hip n happenin stuff
i think in abt 10 yrs it will surpass bangalore in fashion n stuff n all i guess
and in 20 yrs it will surpass mumbai as indias best city
in 30 yrs it will surpass hong kong and singapore as asias best city
and in 40 yrs frm now it will surpass new york as worlds best city
:D :D :D :D :D :D
and i think this is the longest post i have ever typed
:D

:weirdo: :lol:

in 50 years.. Chennai will come out of the closet.. and declare that its inhabitants are actually aliens with extra terrestrial intelligence

Tulip Towers - Residential

http://img52.exs.cx/img52/6826/tulip.jpg

Maharaja Multi-Level Car Park

http://img52.exs.cx/img52/3161/maharajamultilevelcarpark.jpg

KSS Food & Fun Mall

http://img52.exs.cx/img52/4071/KSShomepro.gif

http://img52.exs.cx/img52/7338/KSShomepro2.gif

ViMo... I like Tulip towers architecture. Modern & sleek. Only wish it was twice as tall. Then it would have looked great.

Food & Fun mall is huge. It really looks good.

Multi level car parking is the only way to go in the future regarding the amount of vehicles added to the streets each year. I hope it catches on everywhere.

Chennai corporation is also planning to build to multi level parking here

food and fun mall looks huge and awesome

In the pictures of KSS Food Mall, is that the only parking they have provided, in the front of the building?

If it is, it seems really inadequate.

http://www.archisoftinc.com/pic_animation_banglore.jpg 3D Model of proposed South Western Railway Head Quarters, Bangalore, India by Archisoft Inc.

Towering dreams to turn real

The Rs 90-crore tower project has got the Chief Minister’s nod but is yet to get an environmental go-ahead. Chief Architect H R Vishwanath is all excited

DEEPA BALAKRISHNAN

http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/jan052004/metro3.asp

Ever thought you would sit in a revolving cafeteria, 560 metres above the city, and take in a panoramic view of Karnataka from the paddy fields of Mandya to the industries of Hoskote, from Hogannekal falls to the Devanahalli, all in one glance?

If Bangalore’s dreams of the tower come true, this is exactly what you will be able to do.

The Bangalore Mahanagara Palike’s ambitions of building a 560-metre tall tower at the proposed Freedom Park in the Old Central Jail premises have already taken the shape of a blue-print. What is more, Chief Minister S M Krishna has given this the go-ahead too, and chief architect of the Rs 90- crore project, H R Vishwanath, is all excited.

“The tower will beat Toronto’s 553-metre tall Canadian National Tower. It will come up in the south-west corner of the Freedom Park, and have a revolving cafeteria at a height of about 370 metres, where people can go and enjoy an uninterrupted view up to a radius of 100 kilometres around the city,” says Mr Vishwanath.

He was earlier the engineer of the 235-metres tall TV tower in Delhi, commissioned in 1988 by then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi -- the only other tower in the country that measures up, to some extent.

Once the BMP Council approves the project, global tenders will be called to construct the structure.

There are exciting plans on the cards for the dream-tower. At the outset, the podium at the bottom will house a ‘Freedom Gallery,’ with an audio-video presentation of India’s freedom struggle from 1857-1947.

“The tower, at the old central jail, will be located in the heart of the city.

“As it will be in Freedom Park, we thought we should showcase our freedom struggle to go with the name. Such a presentation can be seen in Waterloo, Belgium,” said Mr Vishwanath.

The south-west corner of the 21-acre park has been chosen for the tower as this is also ideal from the Vaasthu point of view.

“As per Vaasthu, structures in the south-west corner of any site should be the tallest and the heaviest, compared to its surroundings,” said the engineer.

Once you enter the structure, four high-speed elevators will whisk you away to the top. Four lifts are to be imported from Germany, as India does not have the technology for this -- taking you up at 7 metres per second, so you can reach the top floor in a minute. A viewing gallery, or ‘space deck,’ next to the cafeteria, are the prime attractions at the top.

At a higher altitude, some space will be given to Doordarshan, Radio, Defence, Postal and Police departments for control-room, communication and other infrastructure. Transmission and reception of all electronic signals (cellphone) will be easier. Pollution levels and traffic congestion in Bangalore can be monitored from here too.

The tower will be self-sufficient with regard to power supply, as, though it is not a solar tower, solar panels at the top sky-pod floor will generate enough captive power for the tower’s consumption -- in utilities like elevators, telecasting equipment and lighting.

“We are planning a special VVIP conference-cum-dining floor near the common cafeteria too.

“At the end of it, when illuminated at night, the tower will look marvellous,” said Mr Vishwanath.

As Mayor P R Ramesh puts it, “We have the CM’s written consent, and will get environment clearance later.” Clearance from the Airports Authority of India is also needed.

However, the blueprint and designs have been proof-checked by German consultants. “It will take two years to be completed, from the date of commencement of work, not counting clearances and bidding processes,” said Mr Vishwanath. With this tower, Bangalore will be catapulted into the race against major metros of the world in housing the world’s tallest structures.

The Petronas Towers at Kuala Lumpur (452 metres) and the recently-constructed Shanghai tower (507 metres) are the world’s tallest buildings, while the proposed Freedom Tower at Ground Zero (where World Trade Centre fell in New York) will measure 541 metres. Further, an Australia power company is planning to build the world's tallest structure - a solar tower - at a proposed height of 1,000 metres -- expected to be completed by 2006 in the remote Buronga district of New South Wales.

Yet to get an enviornmental nod...

Yet to get an enviornmental nod...

:runaway:

Bullshit! :gunz:

How can anyone construct a 560 mts tower for just 90 crore rupees?

And for this money, one can only get a 560 mts eyesore. No thanks, we don't want it. Let Bangalore develop into an international quality megacity! :)

Just how old is this article? S M Krishna is no longer the CM of Karnataka, and the new CM is Dharam Singh of Congress.

And the new governments coming in AP and Karnataka rode into power promising the farmers and the downtrodden of the states a share of the 'feel-good' factor, and thus cancelled or scaled down some big ticket business ventures because they are "sons of the soil" and thus if our villages can't move forward, which they should be held responsible for, then our cities cant either.

Just how old is this article? S M Krishna is no longer the CM of Karnataka, and the new CM is Dharam Singh of Congress.


It's a Jan 5/2004 article (see the link) when SMK was CM. That's why the question - will it turn into reality?

560 mtr building at rs 90 crore :lol:

the data at the end is all mixed
so this is tower not building of course so its not in the same leage as some of the mentioed

Ringed by problems ORR on bumpy track

While the ground realities are different, BDA has declared the Rs 182 cr ORR project as being ‘successfully completed’

BY P M RAGHUNANDAN
DH NEWS SERVICE, BANGALORE:


It is almost one and half years since the much-hyped Outer Ring Road was inaugurated by then Chief Minister S M Krishna. But even to this day, the Rs 182 crore project undertaken by the BDA remains incomplete.

But for constructing 62 kms of the main road (ring road), the axillary works connected with the project - laying of 104 kms of service road, construction of retaining walls and footpath - have turned out to be non-starters. As a result, thousands of people living beside the ring road are forced to live under the shadow of death.

With service roads virtually not motorable, two-wheeler riders have to jostle for space along with heavy transport vehicles which move at great speed on the ring road. Moreover, as trucks are usually parked on the ring road in areas like Ramamurthy Nagar, Airport Road, Koramangala, BTM Layout and others, motorists take a bumpy ride on land reserved for the service road.

In fact, the ring road was aimed at easing traffic congestion inside the City by diverting movement of heavy vehicles, especially those from National and State Highways.

But due to non-completion of the project, the road has turned out to be a virtual nightmare for citizens.

As per the plan, BDA was supposed to lay nearly 104 km of service road on either side of the main ring road for the safe movement of residents and BMTC buses.

“Though the land required for the road, including footpath and construction of retaining walls, has by and large been acquired, formation of service roads are kept pending due to lack of funds.

It is estimated to cost around Rs 15 crore even to asphalt the 104 km stretch,” BDA sources told Deccan Herald.

In areas like Nandini Layout, Laggere, HSR Layout and others, BDA is facing stiff resistance from residents on acquiring private land.

“While BDA is eyeing on our land, it has deliberately ignored those belonging to influential people. So, we have refused to hand over our plots until BDA takes over those belonging to the influential,” residents of Nandini Layout IV stage said.

However, what is intriguing is that BDA has declared that the Rs 182 crore project has been ‘successfully completed’. The Authority, in its annual report for 2003-04 has stated that the project, which is languishing for over a decade, has been dedicated to the public within a span of eight months.

When contacted, BDA Commissioner M N Vidyashankar said, the process to call tender for service road laying was on and work would be taken up soon. “Service road is proposed to be formed at places wherever residential layouts have fully developed. So, the project has been delayed,” he maintained.

ROAD MAP

Total length: 62 km

Total cost: Rs 182 cr

Links major highways: Mysore Road, Magadi Road, Tumkur Road, Bellary Road, Hennur Road, Old Madras Road, Varthur Road, Sarjapur Road, Hosur Road, Bannerghatta Road and Kanakapura Road

Image of the new ring road and the incomplete service road -

http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/aug092004/img/2.jpg

Oh!! Now we know why Wipro chief is lashing out at Bangalore's worsening infrastructure.

Infrastructure summit for public, private partnership (http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage.php?storyflag=y&leftnm=lmnu2&leftindx=2&lselect=1&chklogin=N&autono=165364)

After the IT biggies, it is the turn of brick and mortar industry industry associations to advice the Karnataka government on how to overhaul the city’s infrastructure.

At a meet to announce SUMINFRA 2004, a CII summit on sustainable private-public partnerships in integrated infrastructure, Ingersoll Rand chairman Daljit Mirchandani, co-chairman of the event, reiterated some of the recommendations of previous summits.

It will focus on integrated infrastructure development, project financing, emerging trends and opportunities and bridging the gap between private and government bodies.

Some of the projects that will come up for discussion, he said, will be Project Sagarmala, the proposed Rs 1 lakh crore project on coastal shipping development, statewide integrated infrastructure promotion, special economic zones, green buildings and corporatisation of the real estate sector.

Some of the notable delegates include Karnataka chief minister Dharam Singh, Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy and secretary, Planning Commission, government of India, Rajeeva Ratna Shah.

From the real estate and infrastructure sector, representatives include Kiran Kumar Grandhi from the GMR group and Sanjay Verma from Cushman and Wakefield. The organisers said Sanjay Nayar, CEO-India, Citigroup, Ravi Uppal ABB and Ajit Advani of Siemens will also be present.

The summit comes close on the heels of several mega projects that Karnataka is pursuing. It has kicked off a Rs 1,870 crore urban development programme and the new Bangalore international Airport. Besides, to ease pressure on the road network, the government has also been pursuing a Mass Rapid Transit System.


Isnt it ironical that while Dr. Singh is trying so hard to build a better infrastructure, the bloody Congressi CMs in the states are bent on going back to the old ways of appeasement of the masses.

May the government of Sushil Shinde rot in hell for so blatantly destroying the state economy with the sops express before polls.

Royal Garden City

Website:

http://www.riric.com
or
http://www.royalindianraj.com/

The first of four Cities planned for the nation of India by Royal Indian Raj International Corporation (RIRIC). This 2000 acre sub-city development is situated between Downtown Bangalore and the New Bangalore International Airport. The 7 B(USD) integrated Live/Work/Play development features over 66 Million Sq. Ft. of Residential, Commercial and Industrial space to accommodate the burgeoning Bangalore market and has been planned and designed by the former Singapore Public Works Dept.. Anticipated project commencement date fall of 2004 completion date 2014.

Anticipated Start Date Royal Garden City-New Delhi, Royal Garden City -Mumbai ,Royal; Garden City -Calcutta expected summer of 2006/2007.

Royal City - Bangalore, India - Asia's Largest (?) Real Estate Development Project

RIRIC has amassed over 10,000 prime acres of land in Bangalore, India, Asia's fastest growing city and the 'Silicon Valley East". 1015 acres of which has been allocated for the development of "Royal City", which is only 9 km's from the new International Airport, and 15 km to the heart of downtown Bangalore. RIRIC is preparing to launch its inaugural project, a European Sub City 'mixed-use development'. The City is anticipated to cost US$791M and have a retail value of US$3.01B and will be built over an 8-10 year duration. The 'European Style Sub City' as the development is envisaged, would comprise of approximately 31.3 million sq. ft. of built up space, and is Asia's largest development. The development will comprise of 7,500 European style residential units, central business district, industrial district, entertainment district, parks, restaurants, shopping, educational facilities, and civic amenities. One hundred and fifty to three hundred thousand people are anticipated to Live/Work /Play daily.

The development, being the first modern sub city in India, is positioned specifically at the medium to high-end target markets.

Residential Units: targeted at the upper middle class population in India and Non Resident Indians (NRI).
Business Complexes: would be absorbed by the Multi National Firms who are forging ahead in large scale to Bangalore.

The development would be made accessible via RIRIC's own transport and infrastructure facilities. A new 180 ft wide highway (the proposed airport - down town Bangalore highway) is to be constructed adjacent to the site, thereby improving its connectivity to the rest of Bangalore. Further the project will have strong ancillary revenue potential as utilities, refuse management/recycling and captive Internet service provision has not been factored in. Due to the unique and modern nature of the development and strong demand, the project is anticipated to easily generate strong presales of $80M USD on the first 600 Units.

10,000 acres!!! thats a massive piece of land. 10 yrs after its development. Bangalore will be in the league of its own among Southern cities.

Wow, nice. Hope they remove the height barrier atleast here.

Let's see..

Wow, nice. Hope they remove the height barrier atleast here.

Much as I would love to see real tall buildings in Indian cities, I still don't believe we should hold ourselves hostage to this obsession. Right now, Architecture in India is really exploring itself, and we certainly don't have to emulate the example of Chinese towns. Our buildings should suit our topography, lifestyle, culture, tradition, and most of all the physical infrastructure. I would instead love to have beautiful, functional, progressive and intelligent buildings, rather than the mindless ugly (those built in the 70's to meet the housing demand) skyscrapers which litter the landscape of Mumbai.

There is no harm in waiting for the right time; and the good news is: we are heading there, what with the economy booming, and The Real Pros with deep pockets entering the construction industry. Let's just not mess it up like before! :)

Much as I would love to see real tall buildings in Indian cities, I still don't believe we should hold ourselves hostage to this obsession. Right now, Architecture in India is really exploring itself, and we certainly don't have to emulate the example of Chinese towns. Our buildings should suit our topography, lifestyle, culture, tradition, and most of all the physical infrastructure. I would instead love to have beautiful, functional, progressive and intelligent buildings, rather than the mindless ugly (those built in the 70's to meet the housing demand) skyscrapers which litter the landscape of Mumbai.

There is no harm in waiting for the right time; and the good news is: we are heading there, what with the economy booming, and The Real Pros with deep pockets entering the construction industry. Let's just not mess it up like before! :)

Good point.

Much as I would love to see real tall buildings in Indian cities, I still don't believe we should hold ourselves hostage to this obsession. Right now, Architecture in India is really exploring itself, and we certainly don't have to emulate the example of Chinese towns. Our buildings should suit our topography, lifestyle, culture, tradition, and most of all the physical infrastructure. I would instead love to have beautiful, functional, progressive and intelligent buildings, rather than the mindless ugly (those built in the 70's to meet the housing demand) skyscrapers which litter the landscape of Mumbai.

There is no harm in waiting for the right time; and the good news is: we are heading there, what with the economy booming, and The Real Pros with deep pockets entering the construction industry. Let's just not mess it up like before! :)

While you have a valid pt. A place like Bombay needs tall buildings, just as matter of utility. So while in bangalore with the ample space present you might not care much for the height restrictions, in a place like Bandra-Kurla complex the height restriction should be removed due to the limited amount of space. If you visit any city with land restrictions, such as New York, there are plenty of buildings built back in the day which look old and have the same effect of littering the landscape (which you cant see now coz of the newer taller buildings), my point being that you can only build better tall buildings, by building tall buildings.

However, for a place like bangalore, no need to rush and built skyscrapers just yet, you can learn from the mistakes made in places where they are really needed and if there is any one city in India in need of such buildings, its Bombay.

When we compare the growth of tall buildings in the developed nations and then ask for the same here, we are forgetting one basic difference between those cities and the ones here; the lack of tertiary infrastructure.

by that, i mean the infrastructure of urban waste disposal centers, waste recycling centers, water treatment plants etc. Indian cities are ridiculously short of such assets, and without which, it will be impossible to sustain such urbanization. Imagine the amount of water we will save if rain water harvesting is adopted at a national level.
The growth of the nation is already jeopardized by its massive population which is very low on major social development indexes. Hundreds of thousands of cars are being sold every day, but people still refuse to drive in lanes, and motorbikes will still try to sqeeze into every little space at a stop light and a pedestrian will still jaywalk all the time.

Vimo makes a great point of going slow and steady, and another reason which comes to mind is the tradition lack of efficient town planning by governments at all levels of governence. Till the various city authorities around the country get their act together, i would be vary of letting them in charge of such urban growth.

^^^
Some of what you say about the roads and jaywalking reminds me of a saying I read somewhere.

It said that democracy has made Indians very aware of their rights but has not instilled in them their duty towards creating a civic society.

So we will always demand better roads but when the roads are built we will not follow any rules while driving on them or crossing them.

Hey Suncity,

I think Jaywalking and basic civic duties are completely different in my opinion.
In the US, you have crossings clearly indicated to reduce Jaywalking. We would like to see more people in India follow these rules closer, but its important to not become paranoid to such an extent that at 2AM in the morning, you walk all the way up to the next crossing and only then cross the road, inspite of it being completely empty.
Lets start with none of us throwing our trash on the road, or in a public area, now thats a civic responsibility but how many of us follow it. Education and pride in our own environment will lead to this.

I agree with the fact that you need better infrastructure in the urban environment to spur growth, but In order to spur growth in certain cities you must have places for the city's inhabitants to stay and for companies to have offices. In a city like Bombay, since its an island you need to have tall buildings, its as simple as that.

Hey Suncity,

I think Jaywalking and basic civic duties are completely different in my opinion.
In the US, you have crossings clearly indicated to reduce Jaywalking. We would like to see more people in India follow these rules closer, but its important to not become paranoid to such an extent that at 2AM in the morning, you walk all the way up to the next crossing and only then cross the road, inspite of it being completely empty.
Lets start with none of us throwing our trash on the road, or in a public area, now thats a civic responsibility but how many of us follow it. Education and pride in our own environment will lead to this.

I agree with the fact that you need better infrastructure in the urban environment to spur growth, but In order to spur growth in certain cities you must have places for the city's inhabitants to stay and for companies to have offices. In a city like Bombay, since its an island you need to have tall buildings, its as simple as that.

I am all for tall buildings in Mumbai and also for better infrastructure to support tall buildings.

Guys, post here any news,views on the Metro network proposed in Bangalore.

Here's the first one from me. A year old news.

WORK FOR BANGALORE METRO TO BEGIN IN DECEMBER.
Times News Network[August 28,2003]

BANGALORE: Work on the prestigious Rs5,000 crore Bangalore Metro Rail project will commence by November/December 2003, after the Government of India approval for the proposal which is being studied by the Planning Commsison is obtained.

The Bangalore Mass Rapid Transit Limited(BMRTL) will undertake the initial implementation like preparing the detailed design for the project,acquisitaion of land geo-tchnology surveys.

Once the central government approval is obtained, a company 'Bangalore Metro Limited'with equal equity from Govt of India and Govt of Karnataka will be formed and this new company will continue the implementation of the project by BMRTL, its chairman Umesh Bhatt said on Thursday

Speaking to reporters to announce the commencement of prelimnery work, Bhat and BMETL director LV Nagarajan said the land acquisition process for the project will commence soon after the approval comes from the Centre.

About 30 acres of land will be obtained at Yashwantpur. A total of 48 hectares of land, 20 acres of which will be private land, is being acquired at the cost of Rs360 crore for the purpose.While some land is private,the remaining are within the Government ambit.

Nagarajan says that land owners will be asked to appear before the Deputy Commssioner and the land will be procured at market rates. The land aquisition will be done speedily.

"We have identified the land to be acquired," he said admitting that there will be some displacement for some small buisnesses on Swami Vivekananda Road.

The main physical work will commence by April/May 2004, Nagarajan said adding that the BMRTL have already had the discussion with Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation for the power supply for the Metro Rail system, which will require 30MW now and 40MW power in 2007, when the project is completed and the system is in place.

The Bangalore Metro Rail will require 117 coaches,which will be puechased at a cost of Rs 643 crore.

Nagarajan said the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation(DMRC), based on whose Detailed Project Report, the Karnataka government was going ahead with the system, was procuring the coaches from Bangalore based Bharath Earth Movers Limited(BEML).

The rakes for the Bangalore Metro will be initially three coaches and subsequently six coach rakes.

Here's the map for the proposed network.

www.irfca.org/users/delhimetro/maps/Bangalore.pdf

are all the major cities in india getting a metro?

are all the major cities in india getting a metro?

There were plans to build metro's in Bangalore, Ahmadabad and Hyderabad initially. After that there plans to build it in cities like Mumbai, Chennai and Kochi.

i dont think chennai is getting any metro coz it already has this stupid MRTS

Dairy Circle flyover to be opened today (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/851240.cms)

The flyover, which measures 534.82 metres long and 7.5 metres wide, with an obligatory span 50 metres, has been constructed at a cost of Rs 11.25 crore. Chief minister N. Dharam Singh will inaugurate the flyover on Wednesday at 6 pm.

Residents, who had for long complained about the slow pace of work on the underpass, can now breathe easy as the underpass is expected to be ready in about six-eight weeks time.

The untarred stretch of road had proved to be a treacherous ride, especially for patients being taken in ambulances to Nimhans, Kidwai and other hospitals nearby. Patients and their families had complained that the road below the flyover was so bad that patients lurched dangerously inside the ambulances.

The flyover will connect the road from Christ College—Dharmaram College towards Nimhans and Kidwai Hospital. The project has been executed by the Uttar Pradesh State Bridge Corporation.

Good stuff...

Some projects from Mantri Group

Mantri Elite

http://www.mantri.info/images/Elite_perspective_zoom.jpg

Mantri Aquatica

http://www.mantri.info/images/Aquatica_BaboutImg.jpg

Mantri Greens

http://www.mantri.info/images/Greens_BPerspective.jpg

Mantri Sarovar

http://www.mantri.info/images/Sarovar_perspective.jpg

Mantri Rythm

http://www.mantri.info/images/Rytham_PerspectiveZoom.jpg

Mantri Altius

http://www.mantri.info/images/Altius_perspectiveImg.jpg

Platinum City

http://www.indiabuildersco.com/aerialview.jpg

http://www.indiabuildersco.com/idealfamily.jpg

Brigade group projects

Gardenia

5 tower blocks

http://www.brigadegroup.com/apartments/gardenia/glacier/imgs/artist_impr.jpg

http://www.brigadegroup.com/apartments/gardenia/golden_magic/imgs/artist_impr.jpg

Brigade Millenium

5 tower blocks.

http://www.brigadegroup.com/apartments/millennium/jacaranda/imgs/artist_impr.jpg

Purvankara group

Purva Riviera

http://www.purvankara.com/images/reviera/Clsoeup-Riviera.jpg

Whatever happened to this project of Bearys group?

Lakeside Habitat

twin 23 storey tower connected by a bridge (Petrona babies)?

Harmony Homes

http://www.bearysgroup.com/harmonyhomes/images/harmony.jpg

Prestige Constructions

St John's Wood

http://www.mystjohnswood.com/images/projectpic2big.jpg

Clarkewoods

http://www.prestigeconstructions.com/project/residential/apartment/clarkewoods/images/cwoods.jpg

Exotica

http://www.prestigeconstructions.com/images/project/residential/exotica/exotica.jpg

cool bangalore sure is getting some awesome highrises there

Bangalore suburb to be $2.9 bn smart city (http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage.php?hpFlag=Y&chklogin=N&autono=168148&leftnm=lmnu4&leftindx=4&lselect=0)

It is the biggest foreign direct investment in India’s real estate sector. Vancouver-based Royal Indian Raj International Corporation (RIRIC) will invest a staggering $2.9 billion in a single real-estate project named Royal Garden City in Bangalore over a period of 10 years. The retail value of the project is estimated at $8.9 billion (Rs 41,000 crore).

The country’s first web-enabled “smart city” will be spread over 3,000-5,000 acres and will be located 20 km from Bangalore city near the new international airport.

The project is expected to build 35,000-50,000 houses, a business district and educational facilities, apart from state-of-the-art medical, shopping and entertainment infrastructure.

Construction is expected to commence early next year and will be completed within 10 years.

While Jones Lang LaSalle has been selected to manage transactional services and market the product globally, the master plan and the urban design for the Bangalore project will be executed by CPG Corporation. Previously called the Singapore Public Works Department, CPG Corporation had built the ‘Singapore City’ and is keenly looking at India to expand its business.

India Announces Projects in Software Hub
09.27.2004, 06:38 AM

http://www.forbes.com/business/manufacturing/feeds/ap/2004/09/27/ap1560962.html

India's government said Monday it will widen several roads and build expressways to ease congestion in Bangalore, the southern city where dozens of Western companies have software development and back-office operations.

The projects will resolve the high-tech firms' long-standing grievances over the city's inadequate infrastructure, said T.R. Baalu, federal minister for road transport, highways and shipping.

Scores of U.S. and European companies have operations in Bangalore for software development, engineering design, customer support and routine office functions, taking advantage of lower wages and real estate costs.

But the firms complain that traffic jams erode some of the savings that come from moving work to India. They hire hundreds of buses to transport employees.

Development plans include an elevated expressway from southern Bangalore to a suburban software complex called Electronics City, where hundreds of giants such as Hewlett-Packard and Motorola have offices.

The new expressway will open in April 2007, Baalu said.

All roads leading to highways will be widened, and elevated expressways will be built over some of them, Baalu said.

"These projects will ease congestion and support the growth of the industry," he said.

Bangalore accounts for 32 percent of India's US$12.5 billion (euro 10.2 billion) revenues from outsourcing.

Baalu said the 3 billion rupees ($65 million; euro 53 million) expressway to Electronics City will be paid for equally by the federal government, companies in the software complex and the government of Karnataka state, of which Bangalore is the capital.

New Bangalore road to beat jams
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3693846.stm

India has worked hard to improve its road network

India's technology capital Bangalore is to get an $87m (£48m) toll motorway in order to tackle the city's growing congestion problem.
With the city established as India's main centre for outsourced Western businesses, jobs are now as plentiful as the traffic jams on its roads.

The new road into a business zone is being partly paid for by its US and European tenants, including Siemens.

They have long complained that traffic problems were harming business growth.

Boom city

India's federal minister for road transport, highways and shipping, TR Baalu, said the new 9km (5.5 mile) road, and a number of separate carriageway-widening projects, would go a long way to resolving the transport infrastructure grievances.

The new expressway will open in April 2007, Mr Baalu said, and will be 33% paid for by the business tenants.

"These projects will ease congestion and support the growth of the industry," he said.

Many US and European corporate giants, including Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, and Tesco, have in recent years exported operations such as software development and customer support to Bangalore, attracted by low wage costs and cheap property prices.

The city, capital of the southern state of Karnataka, now accounts for some 32% of India's $12.5bn annual revenues from overseas outsourcing.

After years of rapid growth Bangalore has a population of 6.5 million and 1.95 million cars.

Hmm.. I read in Newsweek that outsourcing jobs will in the future be outsourced to smaller cities like Cochin. Aong the reasons cited - infrastructure trouble in Banagalore, and rising wages in big cities. Hopefully this will help address some of the grievances companies in Bangalore have.

Is it just my imagination, or is India going through a road-building boom now? (finally?)

Hmm.. I read in Newsweek that outsourcing jobs will in the future be outsourced to smaller cities like Cochin. Aong the reasons cited - infrastructure trouble in Banagalore, and rising wages in big cities. Hopefully this will help address some of the grievances companies in Bangalore have.

Is it just my imagination, or is India going through a road-building boom now? (finally?)

There is a lot of road construction activity going on.

Good stuff.....but I really like the way they are developing Delhi, with seamless integration between expressways, Metro and high capacity buses. I think they should try to develop all other Indian cities the same way, even if it takes some more time, and there is some buzz of a Bangalore Metro coming soon.

We shall see the results in Delhi in a decade or so. When are they upgrading IGI? Honestly.. an integrated public transport system should have a good airport too...

We shall see the results in Delhi in a decade or so. When are they upgrading IGI? Honestly.. an integrated public transport system should have a good airport too...

As soon as the political parties rise above petty politics and thrash out a CMP for airport/aviation policy.

Ah.. not in the forseeable future then. :bash:

Hmmm.. they want a Mumbai metro too. It's all talk.. in India you wait till you see it completed and THEN you believe it. (I seem to remember someone saying that on this forum, can't remember who. just quoting you..)

Good to see some real good expressways coming up in B'lore. They were suppose to come up by now & ready to go. I guess its 3 years late now. No wonder Wipro cheaf is going bonkers.

ECOSPACE BUSINESS PARK

Location:

Marathalli-Sarjapur Outer Ring Road, Bangalore

http://www.rmzcorp.com/images/proj_ecoworldlocmap.gif

Layout:

http://www.rmzcorp.com/images/proj_ecospacemaster.jpg

Various building renderings:

Massing Low and midrise / campus facility

Built to suit facility-
Low rise, Campus feel, Scalability Option, Independent Identity, superior last mile connectivity, security and maintenance, landscaping & common amenities

http://www.rmzcorp.com/images/proj_ecospace1.jpg

http://www.rmzcorp.com/images/proj_ecospace2.jpg

http://www.rmzcorp.com/images/proj_ecospace3.jpg

http://www.rmzcorp.com/images/proj_ecospace4.jpg

http://www.rmzcorp.com/images/proj_ecospace5.jpg

http://www.rmzcorp.com/images/proj_ecozen.jpg

The second and third renderings look great.

Top Class Buildings!!!!!!!

Hi suncity

Hmm... a photo I nabbed a couple months back of this project also included the following buildings

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v134/coocoocal/banga/42.jpg

Have these been redesigned/dropped from the project?


------==-=-==-----

Also, do you know the status of this project in Bangalore. It's called "Knowlege Park" or something....

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v134/coocoocal/banga/15.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v134/coocoocal/banga/16.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v134/coocoocal/banga/17.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v134/coocoocal/banga/18.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v134/coocoocal/banga/19.jpg

Good projects, but in my opinion, too much land is being wasted by constructing low rises of 3 - 5 storeys. Atleast buildings between 10 - 15 storeys would have made more commercial sense. Also, too much land is being wasted for landscaping et al. In Silicon Valley and other tech hubs, quite a few buildings actually share one large piece of landscaped gardens or spaces. This arrangement is wastage, until and unless, the land beneath the gardens and greens is being used for underground parking and other utilities.

Hi suncity

Hmm... a photo I nabbed a couple months back of this project also included the following buildings

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v134/coocoocal/banga/42.jpg

Have these been redesigned/dropped from the project?



The buildings do look similar but slightly redesigned.

We have to wait for the finished product to see how it turns out.


As far as IBC knowldege Park is concerned. I don't know the exact status. But it is partially functional. Accenture India has its offices in that complex.

if all this buildings come up and all the others that are planned in the next couple of year than i think bangalore could be a world class city. well not quite. i think the government needs to improve the road so bad man. the roads are making the city look bad. i am talking about the road in the city and not the ones going out.

i think india will be in great shape if they have a 100 story building built or atlest aproved before the end of this decade.

100 story buildings are frivolous. We do not NEED one as yet. What India needs is to improve what already exists (and it needs a lot of it) and THEN see if a 100 story building is required.

Only if we could improve Bangalore, we could make it another Mumbai. I mean with so many companies($$$$$$$billions) we could really get a lot of taxes. If better facilities are provided,obviuosly, more companies could move in and we could talk in $. This country has a NYC(Mumbai), we need a Chicago. Bangalore could be that.Any comments?

Divyasree Greens -

http://www.divyasree.com/gre3.jpg

http://www.divyasree.com/gre2.jpg

Proposed ultra-modern parking systems -

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v168/bangalorebuzz/blog/toiparklot.jpg

Mantri Aquatica (24 storeys)

http://img55.photobucket.com/albums/v168/bangalorebuzz/blog/mantriaquatica.jpg

Lakeside Habitat (24 storeys)

http://www.bearysgroup.com/images/lakeside/elevation.jpg

Bearys Group website - http://www.bearysgroup.com

Finally we have a nice rendering of this project. It caught my attention a couple of years back. The project seemed to have disappeared from the radar after that. Good that it has been resurrected.

I also like their Mangalore project - His Grace..

http://www.bearysgroup.com/images/hisgrace/img_location.jpg


Great job again Kshatriya!!!

^ You mean Lakeside Habitat? Thanks anywayz....

Recent newsbits -


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v168/bangalorebuzz/blog/toimetromap.jpg

Metro Rail on sound financial track
Work On First 7-km Stretch May Start Next March
Times of India

Bangalore: The verdict is out: Despite a delay of 10 years and several transformations, the high-cost Bangalore Metro rail project has been stamped “financially and technically sound’’ by a top private bank.

The finding, by financial appraiser UTI Bank, has come as a shot in the arm for the Rs 4,989 crore project, which, till now has not gone beyond the drawing board. With the fiscal appraisal complete, the project — pegged as the solution to Bangalore’s traffic problems — has now been given a positive tag just prior to going before the state cabinet for clearance.

“As per the UTI appraisal, Bangalore Metro will be in the black — making profits — within eight years,’’ Bangalore mass rapid transit limited (BMRTL) managing director K.N. Shrivastava said.

For Bangaloreans who find life a daily struggle with traffic jams, the news is sweet. They have been paying for a dream metro rail to solve their problems since 1995 through the infrastructure cess on petrol and diesel.

As per the Bangalore Metro fiscal model — a variation on the Delhi Metro — the state government will have to annually give a sum of Rs 220 crore for five years. This is to be met from the identified fund source — infrastructure cess — which amounts to Rs 260 crore per year. The Centre will also have to come up with its share, another Rs 230 crore annually, for five years. But officials are confident that both Planning Commission and Union finance ministry approvals will be forthcoming for the same, as Bangalore Metro is on a priority list.

“A meeting is scheduled with the Union urban development ministry, where we expect their approval. We have done all the networking needed and have been assured support from central ministers from Karnataka to fast-track the project,’’ Shrivastava said.

BMRTL — which will be the special purpose vehicle to execute the Bangalore Metro project — is now working towards the tight deadline of November 30 to achieve financial closure. The UTI appraisal and project details are to be sent to banks and financial institutions (FI) in the next few days, though several FIs have already expressed interest in servicing the debt component of Rs 2,700 crore (58 per cent of project cost).

Once funding is tied up, work on the first 7 km from Cubbon Park (near the KSCA stadium) to Byappanahalli will begin by March 2005. And the first air-conditioned train is slated to roll out by 2009.




India's answer to Disneyland to come up in Bangalore
India’s answer to Disneyland!
Express Hotelier and Caterer

Bangalore, India’s IT capital, will soon boast of a leisure and entertainment complex which is being touted as ‘India’s answer to the US-based Disneyland’. Spread across 220 acres, this facility is slated to be the country’s ultimate leisure destination.

Bringing this project to reality are the promoters of Sammy’s Dreamland in Bangalore. Charting out an ambitious expansion plan, its promoters are looking at adding approximately 2,000 rooms to the leisure destination. Besides, considering the phenomenal growth experienced by the meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions (MICE) segment in the city, adding a convention centre to their facility is on the cards as well.

Speaking exclusively to EHC, Sammy Nanwani, chairman, Sammy’s Dreamland, said, “Having positioned Sammy’s Dreamland as an ultimate leisure destination in the city, we are now looking at adding approximately 2,000 rooms in various categories ranging from two-star to five-star deluxe accommodations. This development will be carried in phases and completed by 2007.”

Mr Nanwani plans to set up these hotels through joint ventures and is in the process of identifying the right business partners. “We haven’t shortlisted any one as yet as we are studying the various market players and identifying right partners will take some time,” confirmed Mr Nanwani.

Sammy’s Dreamland will also feature a convention centre catering to the MICE segment which has been growing by leaps and bounds in Bangalore. Sanjiv Makin, head-operations, Sammy’s Dreamland, said, “The MICE market is getting bigger day-by-day, so having a convention centre will help us tap this potential segment. The centre will be very huge and have a capacity to accommodate 3,000 to 5,000 people.”

The expansion will be funded through a proper mix of internal and external sources. Elucidated Makin, “We will be looking at partnerships, franchise agreements and sourcing from financial institutions will be considered as well. This apart, a considerable amount will be invested internally.”

Spread over 220 acres, Sammy’s Dreamland has accomplished the first phase of the total five set to be completed by 2007. Explains PI Pal, head-business development, “We have completed the first phase wherein we have 23 rides in all. In the later phase we plan to have about 40 plus rides. The coming phases will also see hotels, shopping malls, multiplexes etc. We have a big facility and we will put it to good use.”

Though situated about 23 kilometres from the main city, according to Makin, this factor will benefit them in the long run. He says, “The yet-to-build international airport at Devanahalli is close to us. The city is expanding and soon we will be very much within the city. There are plenty of educational institutes that have come and a lot of companies are setting base here. The spending capacity of people in Bangalore has increased drastically. Besides, another factor that will benefit us is the fact that there is no tourist destination within the city or even in the outskirts for that matter. Thus, Sammy’s Dreamland will fill that requirement.”

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v168/bangalorebuzz/blog/toiprr.jpg

Peripheral Ring Road on course
Once in place this project will add another dimension to the city, says R Jayaprakash
Times of India

It's good news for Bangalore. The Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) has planned the much-needed Peripheral Ring Road (PRR) for the city. It's going to be a 110-km ring road that will circumnavigate the city linking the major highways - Tumur Road, Mysore Road, Old Madras Road, and the Hosur Road. The project estimated at a cost of Rs 550 crores is awaiting a final nod from the State Cabinet.

The proposed PRR alignment links major highways and district roads, thereby creating a direct corridor passage round the city. Plenty of commercial hubs and housing localities would come up along the PRR. Most of the intra-city heavy trucks would prefer this corridor instead of the Outer Ring Road, in view of the quick and safe traverse with marginal increase in distance. The BDA has proposed a six lane road with 1.5 metres of central median and two metres of earthen shoulder on either side with a minimum width of the road being 27.5 metres.

Since the PRR runs in a semi-urban belt for most of the length, the BDA has proposed to develop service roads only at urban limits and at junctions, keeping extra land on either side in rural stretches for developing service roads at a later date. Provisions for drainage, road pavement, ground water recharge, and artificial ponds are also being made.

It may be noted here that the BDA being the planning authority, prepared the Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) for the Bangalore Metropolitan Area (BMA) for the first time in 1983 and revised it once in 1995. The Outer Ring Road and Inner Ring Road implemented by the BDA were part of the CDP. Even the Peripheral Ring Road was conceived in the original CDP indicating the tentative alignment. However, the Outer Ring Road project that was started in 1992 was completed in 2002 and much water has flown under the bridge since then.

The Outer Ring Road today offers the city the vital connectivity it needs. It added a new dimension to the city. The bitter part is that with so many intersections and the road acting as the only major linking road to many areas, the traffic flow is more than 6,000 PCU per hour.

With the PRR taking shape, stress on the Outer Ring Road will considerably reduce. The PRR will supplement it and regulate the movement of heavy vehicles.

Logistics


Length: 108.96 km Location: 14 to 22 km from city center, 2.8 to 11.5 km from the existing Outer Ring Road Feature: Six lane, 3 carriage way divided road Crossings: 12 major roads, 6 railway lines, 3 water supply lines Drainages: 48 major drains

Project cost


Land acquisition: 2,049 acres at a total cost of Rs 163.92 crores Civil works: Rs 326 crores Interchanges: Rs 30 crores (six railway level crossings)
Junction improvements at 12 road crossings: Rs 6 crores Major bridges: Rs 20 crores Miscellaneous: Rs 5 crores Total cost: Rs 550 crores

The route...


The PRR will connect four major roads coming into the city - Tumkur Road, Old Madras Road (Kolar Road), Hosur Road, and Mysore Road. This means that nearly 40 percent of the goods carriages can now take the PRR and move on to their destination avoiding getting into the city.

Some villages among the 99 villages on the edge of the city that are touched in the PRR project: Gangodanahalli, Varthur, Anjanapura, Uthralli, Doddabele, Challeghatta, Kodigehalli, Venkatapura, Agara, Gottikere, Bellandur, Lingarajpura, Avalahalli.

Vertical Bangalore?
Vertical Bangalore? Experts not sure & debate goes on...
Times of India

Bangalore: Should Bangalore go higher? With the city’s population as well as business bursting at the seams, urban planners and real estate developers are beginning to believe that the city would do well to go the Shanghai-Hong Kong way.

But many also warn that vertical growth must be accompanied by thorough infrastructure planning, if Bangalore is not to become messier than it is.

Jean-Philippe Lestang of SCE-Creocean India, a French organisation helping to put together a new development plan for Bangalore, says it makes great economic and social sense to keep a city compact, if necessary by going higher. “Bangalore is becoming an urban sprawl, with the focus on promoting large layouts on the city periphery. Instead, if the focus were on improving the main city and making it more dense, not only would it be far more cost effective to provide infrastructure and public transport services, it would also involve a great deal less commuting for citizens,” says Lestang.

Shanghai has, according to one estimate, some 3,000 high-rises of more than 24 storeys, many of them with 70 to 100 storeys or more. In Bangalore, the only buildings that may count in this category are the Public Utility Building (26 storeys) and the recently announced Lakeside Habitat project of the Beary Group with 24 storeys.

Ravi Puravankara, managing director of Puravankara Properties, notes that cities are growing vertically throughout the world. “But in Bangalore, residential buildings cannot rise more than 20 storeys, and sanctions for taller commercial buildings are not given.”

Lestang compares Atlanta in US and Barcelona, Spain, to illustrate the benefits of a compact city. Both cities have a similar population (about 2.5 million in 1990), but Atlanta has a built-up area of 4,280 sq km and Barcelona a mere 162 sq km. In Atlanta, the longest possible distance is 137 km; in Barcelona it is only 37 km. “Barcelona is the ultimate city — an urban planner’s dream.”

However, any attempt to increase the density of Bangalore must necessarily be accompanied by wider roads and better infrastructure.

And many question the city administration’s ability to ensure that. Sobha Developers managing director J.C. Sharma says the city shouldn’t try to grow vertically until its management has total control over all deliverables. “There is no coordination among different agencies. Lestang assumes the state government can get its agencies to go as per his plan. But the fact is, it can’t,” Sharma says.

Palamadai M. Rajagopalan, CEO of property development facilitating company One Source, says the city could make a beginning by relaxing restrictions in areas of low density and relatively good infrastructure.

And the debate goes on.

POINTS TO PONDER


The focus in Bangalore is on promoting large layouts on the city periphery. Instead, focus must be on improving the main city and making it more dense.
Shanghai has 3,000 highrises of more than 24 storeys (many 70-100 storeys or more). In Bangalore, only 2 buildings falls in this category.

Residential buildings cannot raise beyond 20 storeys in Bangalore. Sanctions for taller commercial buildings are not given.

The biggest stumbling block: increase in density of Bangalore must be accompanied by wider roads and better infrastructure. But can the city administration do that?

Hi-Tech city to begin on Nov 15 (http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage.php?storyflag=y&leftnm=lmnu2&leftindx=2&lselect=1&chklogin=N&autono=171415)

Hi-Tech City will come up at the stretch between Sarjapur Road and Hosur Road and is being taken up by the Bangalore Development Authority. It would be an integrated township comprising commercial and residential complex. It will also have a six-lane road within its premises.

Earlier, addressing the delegates to the event, Karnataka chief minister N Dharam Singh said that the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) would incorporate the IT Corridor plan in their new Comprehensive Development Plan.

“This is bound to ensure orderly growth in the IT Corridor area. Apart from this, the BDA is also taking up the Hi-Tech City project near Sarjapur Road exclusively for IT and BT companies. The project will be spread over 1,070 acre and will cost Rs 390 crore,” Singh said.

In this regard, he acknowledged participation of the IT sector in providing good infrastructure. “The industry has agreed to fund one-third of the project cost of about Rs 360 crore for constructing the elevated highway (to Electronics City). The remaining two-thirds will be shared equally by NHAI and the state government,” he said.

not exactly Bangalore but more about Karnataka.

Karnataka acquires land in tier II cities for IT (http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage.php?storyflag=y&leftnm=lmnu2&leftindx=2&lselect=1&chklogin=N&autono=171633)

In an effort to increase IT investments in secondary cities, the government of Karnataka has acquired land near Mysore, Mangalore and Belgaum to develop software parks, according to secretary for IT and Bioctechnology, government of Karnataka, M K Shankarlinge Gowda.

He said, "We have acquired 250 acres of land in Mysore near Infosys campus and about 200 acres in Mangalore. We plan to develop IT parks in this area. Many IT companies have evinced interest in starting their operations at these secondary cities."

Gowda said that the government had also acquired five acres in Belgaum to exclusively house software companies. "This is just to give an initial push for IT companies to start operations there," he said.

Infosys and L&T are reported to add 5,000 and 2,000 people, respectively, in Mysore, during this fiscal. Software exports from Mysore is likely to touch Rs 400 crore as against to Rs 180 crore last year. Software exports from Hubli is currently at about Rs 10 crore.

The article about Bangalore going vertical was intriguing. But some of the figures were exaggerated. Shanghai obviosly doesen't have 3000 buildings of more than 24 cities. No city is like that in the world. Yes I agree, Bangalore should try to go vertical, but only after improving its infrastructure. They should first improve roads, build a metro rail, make the airport and do other important things. I would love to see Bangalore getting decent skyscrapers.

BTW what happend to UB City, are they going to make it or what?

The article about Bangalore going vertical was intriguing. But some of the figures were exaggerated. Shanghai obviosly doesen't have 3000 buildings of more than 24 cities. No city is like that in the world. Yes I agree, Bangalore should try to go vertical, but only after improving its infrastructure. They should first improve roads, build a metro rail, make the airport and do other important things. I would love to see Bangalore getting decent skyscrapers.

BTW what happend to UB City, are they going to make it or what?

The UB group is busy recruiting models for their new airline Kingfisher. UBCity can wait.

:-)

i like the Lakeside Habitat-towers!:)

any news on when it will be finished?

Residency, Richmond roads to turn one-way (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/915320.cms)

The latest to hit the list are Residency Road and Richmond Road, taking the total number of one-ways to 260. The rule will come into force within a fortnight.

In the last six months alone, over 50 roads were converted to one-ways.

Separate bus lanes: The city police are likely to review the new lane system for buses on the stretch between Hebbal flyover and Cauvery junction.

Drunken driving: The city police booked over 400 persons for drunken driving on Saturday night and 1,600 more for violating traffic rules.

Traffic signals operated even after midnight in and around M.G. Road to check the traffic sense of party goers.

Officials claimed that Saturday’s 2,000-plus bookings was a record of sorts for the department.

i like the Lakeside Habitat-towers!:)

any news on when it will be finished?

No idea. You can e-mail Bearygroup. They will reply.

Times Of India
NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 7: This is how India’s Silicon Valley is being grounded. It takes a person no less than the Prime Minister himself to step in to push the first greenfield airport in Bangalore—although it’s been a full four months after the Centre signed the crucial agreement clearing its construction.

That agreement itself came 11 years after the idea was first floated, shot down several times, faced the embarrassment of two ‘‘official land ceremonies’’ then got caught in a tortuous land-acquisition process that finally paved the way for the Karnataka Government’s clearance. Not to speak of the no-objection certificate from the Defence Ministry that took one year and was signed on July 5.

It was after this that the Centre signed the concession agreement and construction was due to begin any time now but it has now dawned upon the Dharam Singh government that it needs to check it all over again. Evidently, it doesn’t matter that Dharam Singh and Manmohan Singh share the same party.

Adding to this absurdity is the fact that the new state government has decided to review all approvals given by the previous S M Krishna regime (incidentally, also Congress), including the Rs 350-crore state support and the 30-year land-lease agreement.

Asked why, Karnataka Industries and Infrastructure Minister P G R Sindhia told The Indian Express: ‘‘The project will take off. It is just that our government wanted to satisfy itself on the kind of concessions being given out to the private consortium and also to familiarise ourselves with the Rs 350-crore state support. The Finance Department is examining this and I am told that it is just a matter of few days before the matter can be taken to (Karnataka) Cabinet.’’

CEO of Bangalore International Airport Ltd (BIAL) Albert Brunner is a worried man because the engineering contract with L&T and Siemens expired in September and a re-validation could mean escalation in the project cost which now stands at Rs 1,350 crore. Brunner, in fact, met Sindhia on Friday and urged him to expedite the matter. While he chases the state government, he may seek solace in the fact that last month, the PM stepped in after Infosys chief mentor N R Narayana Murthy wrote to him apprising him of the new hurdles that have cropped up.

The Civil Aviation Ministry followed this up with a presentation before the PM after which Manmohan sought a status report on the project.and asked Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel to intervene.

Patel says he will speak to Karnataka CM Dharam Singh next week to ‘‘expedite the necessary clearances.’’


DHARAM SINGH GOVT WON'T LET IT FLY
* Project conceived in 1993
• Vajpayee performs land ceremony in Jan 2002 after tough acquisition process
• Stake holders meet in Jan 2003 after first postponement
• In Jan’04, CM Krishna performs another ceremony
• NOC from Defence Ministry follows, concession agreement cleared by NDA Cabinet
• Consortium raises clarifications, amendments made in agreement. Process delayed due to LS elections
• UPA Cabinet takes up matter, approves amendments on July 5, 2004
• Project was to take off in three weeks, waits for bankers to study documents for financial closure
• Cong-JD(S) govt led by Dharam Singh wants to review approvals given by Krishna cabinet. Project pending with Finance dept
• BIAL bankers, financers can’t move on closure until all financial agreements are signed
• Centre still to sign CNS ATM agreement linked to technical issues: alignment of second runway, height of tower, etc.
• Centre keen to sign one-time agreement to ensure no technical blocks in next phase

Last Thursday, a BIAL representative met Civil Aviation Ministry officials and told them that the Karnataka Government had assured them of the approval before November 15. These agreements were to be cleared by the Karnataka Cabinet last month.

Pushed and prodded by the PM, senior Ministry officials, led by Secretary Ajay Prasad, are now in touch with Karnataka Chief Secretary K K Mishra.

When contacted, Patel told The Indian Express: ‘‘I am unhappy with the delay in getting the Bangalore airport construction started. We cleared the concession agreement but the state coalition government needs to follow it up... I will speak to the Chief Minister personally next week.’’

The state government isn’t the only roadblock. Patel’s Ministry, for its part, has told the Prime Minister that other clearances from the Centre are in their ‘‘last stages.’’ The aircraft rules have been modified, the CNS-ATM (communication navigation services-air traffic management) agreement will be signed with the AAI on November 8 and a DGCA is already in Devanahalli, the airport site, to resolve issues over the height of the ATC tower.

While the state government has been dilly-dallying on the two key agreements without which the BIAL’s bankers cannot close the deal, the Defence Ministry is also acting up.

South Block has now introduced two conditions in the No-Objection Certificate for the Bangalore airport. These are: Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd., that operates the current airport, should be allocated a part of revenues from the new airport and that IAF aircaft should be given priority while flying.

But the Civil Aviation Ministry says these shouldn’t be much of a problem. It claims it has convinced the Defence Ministry that IAF aircraft, under existing rules, always get priority in case of war. On the question of revenue, it has said that there is no question of BIAL sharing revenues with HAL.

^^^

Maybe the ministers, IAS officers and other vested interests have not got their cut money yet? I am sure once they have extracted their fair share they will happily give all sanctions. One of the other troublemakers is the HAL.

The government has changed but the Finance ministry bureacrats are the same. So what's there to re-review? The whole thing looks fishy and unconvincing..

On a serious note, Bangalore needs to make sure that it doesn't take its success to its head. Or it may just meet Kolkata's fate. Kolkata's rulers at one time took everything for granted and almost throttled it to death. Hopefully Bangalore will not make the same mistake.



International Airport may fall through

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2004 01:01:21 AM ]

BANGALORE: The Karnataka government has decided to take its own time in finalising agreements for the Bangalore International Airport (BIA) at Devanahalli, as financial implications for the state are "serious."

Infrastructure minister P.G.R. Sindhia told The Times of India here on Tuesday: "Neither the state government nor the Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL) have been informed that consortia members are unhappy about the pace we have set. We cannot react to what has been said in the media. We want to rework the state support amount for the project and if somebody is unhappy about it, we cannot help it."

The clock, however, is ticking fast for the BIA: if Karnataka does not clear the twin hurdles of state support and land-lease agreements within this year, the project may just fall through. And yet again, Hyderabad will be the gainer, at the cost of the Silicon City.

A BIA senior representative said: "The Hyderabad private airport has signed all agreements and is going full-steam. At this rate, it will be built first and take away bilateral agreements with airlines, making BIA redundant."

With all three consortium partners Siemens, Larsen & Toubro and Unique Zurich Airport — openly airing dissatisfaction, the situation for BIA is deja vu: in 1998, the Tatas-Raytheon-Changi Airport consortium pulled out of the project citing "political and bureaucratic" delays.

"The project is at an impasse, because the Karnataka government has reopened the issue of state support and is trying to push the amount down by Rs 75 crore. We have firmly said this cannot be renegotiated," the consortium representative explained.

There is severe time pressure on the project: the Unique Zurich airport has told their partners that they cannot take the running expenses of the project and will have to pull out, if it extends beyond March 2005. The time-frame being given now is: agreements to be signed by November, financial closure by December and full commencement of work by February. "If this is not met and our partner pulls out, the clock will go back to 2000," the representative warned.

Infrastructure secretary Vinay Kumar said he was confident the the December deadline would be met. "As per the concessions agreement, we have time till December for financial closure. We spoke to all the consortium partners and no one has indicated any problems. We are waiting for the concurrence of the finance department to go ahead," he stated.

Sun, what the Tabloid of India fails to report is that the PMO is involved in the project now as well, and that there is still hope.

Bangalore’s new airport hijacked even before take-off (http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=58516)

This is how India’s Silicon Valley is being grounded. It takes a person no less than the Prime Minister himself to step in to push the first greenfield airport in Bangalore—although it’s been a full four months after the Centre signed the crucial agreement clearing its construction.

That agreement itself came 11 years after the idea was first floated, shot down several times, faced the embarrassment of two ‘‘official land ceremonies’’ then got caught in a tortuous land-acquisition process that finally paved the way for the Karnataka Government’s clearance. Not to speak of the no-objection certificate from the Defence Ministry that took one year and was signed on July 5.

It was after this that the Centre signed the concession agreement and construction was due to begin any time now but it has now dawned upon the Dharam Singh government that it needs to check it all over again. it doesn’t matter that Dharam Singh and Manmohan Singh share the same party.

Adding to this absurdity is the fact that the new state government has decided to review all approvals given by the previous S M Krishna regime (incidentally, also Congress), including the Rs 350-crore state support and the 30-year land-lease agreement.

CEO of Bangalore International Airport Ltd (BIAL) Albert Brunner is a worried man because the engineering contract with L&T and Siemens expired in September and a re-validation could mean escalation in the project cost which now stands at Rs 1,350 crore. Brunner, in fact, met Sindhia on Friday and urged him to expedite the matter. While he chases the state government, he may seek solace in the fact that last month, the PM stepped in after Infosys chief mentor N R Narayana Murthy wrote to him apprising him of the new hurdles that have cropped up.

When contacted, Patel told The Indian Express: ‘‘I am unhappy with the delay in getting the Bangalore airport construction started. We cleared the concession agreement but the state coalition government needs to follow it up... I will speak to the Chief Minister personally next week.’’

While the state government has been dilly-dallying on the two key agreements without which the BIAL’s bankers cannot close the deal, the Defence Ministry is also acting up.

South Block has now introduced two conditions in the No-Objection Certificate for the Bangalore airport. These are: Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd., that operates the current airport, should be allocated a part of revenues from the new airport and that IAF aircaft should be given priority while flying.



Mrs. Gandhi needs to have a stronger grip on her state Governments. Its a shame to see them working against each other, and in effect against the development of the country.

and the Ministry of Defence needs to get that stick out of its ass and think with a clear mind.
In fact, i sent a letter to the PMO today on his website asking him to step in because i cant trust the state machinery to deliver on anything!

Why doesn't anybody file PIL questioning the govt's stonewalling tactics ? I wonder if the common man ever realises it is his tax money going into the politicians pocket ? Our people will fight for a Mandir or Masjid but not for the betterment of their living standards.
Things have started slowly changing though. I have heard about protests in Bangalore about road conditions. These are mind you, educated people, not people who are searching for 3 meals a day. The day is not far off when non-performing corrupt politicians/buerocrats will fear venturing out on the streets. I hope I will live to see that day !!

Well hopefully the bureacrats and ministers will start looking towards the welfare of the nation/state/janata instead of their own welfare.

Some BLR projects..

Salarpuria Serenity

http://www.salarpuriagroup.biz/images/sal_seren.jpg

Salarpuria Splendor

http://www.salarpuriagroup.biz/images/splendor.jpe

Salarpuria Silver Woods

http://www.salarpuriagroup.biz/images/silverwoods1.jpg

Check out the main site http://www.salarpuriagroup.biz/

The site is not too good.

BTW Bangalore has famous architects like Zachariah Consultants and Thomas Associates. Do they have any websites or are they like many other Indian Architectural companies - still shying away from the web?

Some from Sobha Developers..
http://www.sobhadevelopers.com/

Sobha Rose

http://www.sobhadevelopers.com/projects/rose/images/rose.jpg

Sobha Quartz

http://www.sobhadevelopers.com/projects/quartz/images/quartz.jpg

Sobha Mayflower

http://www.sobhadevelopers.com/projects/mayflower/images/mayflower.jpg

Sobha Ivory

http://www.sobhadevelopers.com/projects/ivory/images/ivory.jpg

Sobha Iris

http://www.sobhadevelopers.com/projects/iris/images/iris.jpg

Sobha Hibiscus

http://www.sobhadevelopers.com/projects/hibiscus/images/hibiscus.jpg

Sobha Aquamarine

http://www.sobhadevelopers.com/projects/aquamarine/images/aquamarine.jpg

Sobha Tulip (Already posted earlier)

http://www.sobhadevelopers.com/projects/tulip/images/tulip.jpg

Knightsbridge

http://www.citilightsindia.com/images/Knightsbridge.jpg

Seasons - a township

http://www.citilightsindia.com/images/1b.jpg

http://www.citilightsindia.com/images/2b.jpg

http://www.citilightsindia.com/images/4b.jpg

More projects at http://www.citilightsindia.com/

Akme Harmony http://www.akmeprojects.com/

http://www.akmeprojects.com/images/akmeHarmonylayout.jpg

http://www.akmeprojects.com/images/akmeHarmonyElv.jpg

Nagarjuna Green Ridge

http://www.nagarjunaproperties.com/images/greenridge/Green_Ridge_Elevation.jpg

http://www.sjrgroup.com/

Park Vista

http://www.sjrgroup.com/htdocs/images/Park1.jpg

http://www.shriprop.com/

Sai Samruddhi

http://www.shriprop.com/images/samru-elevation.jpg


http://www.skylineconstructions.com/

Skyline Solistice

http://www.skylineconstructions.com/html/MayFlowerHall/SkylineSolstice/html/images/perspective.jpg

Renaissance Park Phase II

http://www.renaissanceholdings.com/Park2.gif

Renaissance Brindhavan

http://www.renaissanceholdings.com/brindhavan.gif

http://www.ukn.co.in/

Springfield

http://www.ukn.co.in/images/re_ga_b1.jpg

http://www.ukn.co.in/images/re_ga_b3.jpg

Sigma Softech Park

Alpha, Beta, Gama, Delta buildings

http://www.ukn.co.in/images/te_b2.jpg

http://www.ukn.co.in/images/te_b15.jpg

http://www.ukn.co.in/images/te_b16.jpg

HM Constructions
World City

http://www.dhrealtyindia.com/developers/hmconstruction/DBMC8226_1.jpg

`HM World City' in Bangalore
OUR ECONOMY BUREAU
Posted online: Saturday, November 06, 2004 at 0042 hours IST

http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=73474

BANGALORE, NOV 5: HM Group has announced the launch of the company's self contained housing project ``HM World City'' in Bangalore. The 28-acre project is said to be the largest residential project in the city so far.

The self contained project would house a hyper market, including entertainment amenities, retail and other commercial facilities, apart from a school, medical dispensary among other amenities within the campus. Work on the first block, is expected to begin within the next 25 days.

Addressing the media, HM Group managing director H J Sivani said that the 1250 units project, was a marked difference from the earlier trend of 20 to 40 units within a campus. Such a trend was becoming popular, he said.

``Earlier, outsiders who settled in Bangalore prefered projects with lesser number of apartments, to protect their privacy. But lately families give top priority to the facilities provided. Privacy is not the only concern anymore.''

He said that according to one estimate, the city has around 1000 people settling here every day. HM's world city is slated to come up nearly 14 km away from the city centre, towards the south of Bangalore.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v168/bangalorebuzz/blog/Inventor.jpg

The fifth building at the International Technology Park complex in Whitefield, Inventor, was inaugurated on 30th October by Tony Tan, the Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore. The other 4 buildings - Discoverer, Innovator, Creator and Explorer aggregating to 1.6 million sq ft of high-tech office space enjoy over 95% occupancy and half the space in Inventor has been leased out during construction itself.

WAHHHHHHHH! :) :)

CPG AND SINGAPORE PILING JOIN HANDS TO DESIGN & BUILD INDIAN RESIDENTIAL TOWNSHIP
Press Release 5 November 2004

CPG Consultants Pte Ltd (CPG) and Singapore Piling & Civil Engineering Pte Ltd signed a contract with Whitefield Shelters Pvt Ltd of Bangalore to design and build 2.6-million sqft residential development. The 13-hectare site located in Whitefield is close to the Bangalore International Technology Park. The entire project, scheduled for launch in January next year and carried out in three phases over three years, is estimated to cost about SGD 80 million.

This is another example of the complementary services provided by Singapore consultants and contractors as a total package. CPG will be providing full master planning, architectural, engineering and related design consultancy services for the project, while Singapore Piling & Civil Engineering, a subsidiary of BBR Holdings (S) Ltd, will be responsible for the construction and project management of the entire development.

One of the first in India : The D & B team will ensure that the project adheres to the Singapore Building and Construction Authority's (BCA) CONQUAS standards of measuring workmanship quality (Construction Quality Assessment System : http://www.corenet.gov.sg/homeowners/about/faq.asp).

Mr T Srinivasa Rao, managing director of Whitefield Shelters, said, "Whitefield first came to know about Singapore's construction industry capabilities and its expertise in township development through BCA's visits in India. In September 2003, I met CPG when the Singapore delegation led by Minister Mah Bow Tan visited Hyderabad. Whitefield is impressed with CPG's extensive track record and design capabilities, and we have confidence in Singapore Piling & Civil Engineering's experience in construction management. The planning and design of this development would incorporate good quality living and I believe the latest technology and know-how in construction planning and management would be enhanced by this Singapore-style D & B approach."

As a businessman, Mr Rao finds that the Singapore brand sells in India. In so many ways, he finds Singapore a natural partner for India because of the common language, ethnic ties and the ‘look east’ policy of the Indian government. "I am confident that CPG and Singapore Piling & Civil Engineering will deliver the high quality of design and construction, which is of importance to my customers - the techno savvy young professional of India," said Mr Rao.

Mr Khor Poh Hwa, president and CEO of CPG Consultants, said, "This project, which is one of the largest residential projects that CPG has undertaken in India, marks an important milestone for us. It gives us the opportunity to provide a range of our multi-disciplinary consultancy services, both in terms of planning and design. We also see great potential in collaborating with Singapore companies such as Singapore Piling for overseas projects. We will leverage on each other's strengths and work closely together to make this project a success. "

This being Singapore Piling & Civil Engineering's inaugural project in India, its managing director, Mr Teng Boon Kwee, said in agreement : "Singapore Piling & Civil Engineering is looking forward to enter the Indian construction industry. We will join forces and work closely with CPG to provide high quality standards in construction management and ensure smooth project delivery."

Mr Andrew Tan, CEO of BBR Group of companies, points out that this is in line with the Group’s strategy to grow the export segment of their business.

http://www.cpgcorp.com.sg/eng/latestnews/2004/nov/Media%20Release/images/Signing.jpg
http://www.cpgcorp.com.sg/eng/latestnews/2004/nov/Media%20Release/images/Group%201.jpg

http://www.cpgcorp.com.sg/eng/latestnews/2004/nov/Media%20Release/index.asp

Does this mean Bangalore is not considering Skybus Metro and going in for Delhi kind of Metro ? If at all it gets done, like the Airport, that is :down:

Deccan Herald Nov 20 04
BANGALORE, DHNS:

The CMH Road Traders’ Association has decided to take up cudgles against the proposed Metro Rail project, demanding re-alignment of the railings on CMH Road in Indira Nagar, even as the project is awaiting clearance from both State and Central governments.

Traders on CMH Road are taking to the streets on Saturday, protesting against the proposed rail alignment (of 0.5 km stretch) that passes through CMH Road from Old Madras Road (near Trinity circle) to reach Byappanahalli. Instead, the association has suggested that the alignment could be modified to make it pass through Old Madras Road (without touching CMH Road) to Byappanahalli.
According to the traders, 55 structures on the road, both residential and commercial, would be acquired. Several trees will also have to be chopped off. This would lead to dislocation of hundreds of people, they complained.
“If the present alignment is modified, the inconvenience to public will be minimal. Besides, this will reduce the project cost by Rs 100 crore,” the association said in a release.

Mr K L Shrivastava, Managing Director of Bangalore Mass Rapid Transit Limited, however, said adequate compensation would be given to land owners whose property would be acquired. “If the present alignment is modified, the estimated ridership (passengers) on this stretch will come down,” he added.

BMRTL has identified 571 properties, both residential and commercial totalling 47.25 acres, to be acquired across the City. Besides, 73 acres of State government land and 13.63 acres of Defence land will also be acquired for the project.

The acquisition process will be initiated once the State government clears the project. “The government has already issued the acquisition notificatoin. The government approval is expected in a month’s time,” Mr Shrivastava said.
Most of the properties identified to be acquired fall in areas like Yeshwanthpur, Rajajinagar, Lalbagh area, K R Road, Jayanagar (under North-South corridor), Vijayanagar, M G Road, Trinity Circle, CMH Road and Byappanahalli (under East-West corridor). In all these places the alignment is planned to be elevated.
The total length of the Rs 4,989-crore project is 34 km

PVR multiplex opens

Priya Village Roadshow, the country's first multiplex chain finally opened its 11-screen multiplex, PVR Forum, in Bangalore today. Ready for launch over two months ago, the opening was put off due to the ongoing tussle in the local film industry. Located at the Forum Mall, the multiplex is India's largest and has 7 regular screens, 2 lounge screens and 2 gold class screens. The gold class screens each have only 32 plush reclining sofas for an
ultra-luxurious movie-viewing experience. The multiplex will screen movies in Kannada, English, Tamil, Telugu and Hindi on a regular basis besides the best of cinema from other Indian and world languages.

The mutiplex, quite understandably, has chosen not to screen any of the movies that fall foul of the unilateral moratorium imposed by a section of the Kannada film industry.

What you can expect:
An array of choice under one roof (if the film industry situation improves)
An expensive but luxurious viewing experience
Loads of traffic jams and parking shortage

http://cache.gettyimages.com/comp/51803980.jpg?x=x&dasite=MS_GINS&ef=2&ev=1&dareq=BE815FD6B606093BAAC4BD79986CF83BA9C30E9B9B114CE8
BANGALORE, INDIA: Indian workers stand on a scaffolding as they work on an upcoming multiplex cum shopping mall in Bangalore 30 November 2004. The concept of a single movie theatre with an over 300 audience is slowly giving way to multiplexes with several movie theatres screening different movies with seating capacity ranging from 15 seats to 50 seats and coupled with shopping malls and food courts to attract more customers resulting in increased business.

Bangalore-Chennai ‘bullet’ train

Deccan Herald

The bullet train project is in tune with the UPA’s policy of modernising the Indian railways by introducing high-speed rail technology.

A bullet train that runs at an average speed of 250 km per hour, may hit the Bangalore-Chennai track in the near future, reports DHNS from Bangalore.

Hinting this at a press conference in Bangalore on Monday, Minister of State for Railways R Velu said a proposal to convert the existing Bangalore-Chennai line into a high-speed corridor was on the anvil. When the project becomes operational, the travel time between Bangalore and Chennai will be reduced by at least two hours.

The bullet train project, that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has shown keen interest in, is being billed as the United Progressive Alliance’s (UPA) answer to the previous NDA government’s much commended national highway development project.

The bullet train project is in tune with the UPA’s policy of modernising the Indian railways by introducing high-speed rail technology.

But before the project is introduced in the Bangalore-Chennai sector, it will be phased in on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad line, covering a distance of about 500 kms.
When it actually starts running, the commercial capitals of Mumbai and Ahmedabad will be connected with each other in less than two hours as against five to six hours by the existing fastest train, the Shatabdi Express. The Mumbai-Ahmedabad project is likely to cost Rs 8,000 crore and is to be executed by 2010. Mr Velu said two Japanese companies have been commissioned to study the projects' feasibility.

Mr Velu said the survey for the much anticipated Bangalore-Sathyamangalam railway line will be completed within six months. The survey up to Talawadi has been completed, he said.

Architects draw up a new look in Indian city

Dec 1 2004
http://icnewcastle.icnetwork.co.uk/0500business/commercialproperty/tm_objectid=14931194&method=full&siteid=50081&headline=architects-draw-up-a-new-look-in-indian-city-name_page.html

By Rebekah Ashby, The Journal


The architect practice behind Newcastle Great Park has won its first contract on the Indian sub-continent.

Newcastle-based RyderHKS has clinched work on a £20m project to oversee the development of 1,200 apartments plus supporting commercial and leisure facilities in the southern Indian city of Bangalore.

International corporation ETA Karnataka Estates has commissioned architects from the Newcastle office to transform the 16-acre Binnyston Gardens site in the centre of Bangalore.

The project team will be flying out to India in the next few weeks to carry out initial assessments and work is expected to start on site in 2005.

Graham McDarby, architectural director at RyderHKS, said: "We are very pleased to announce our first contract win in a new geographic market for the firm. This commission represents a tremendous opportunity for us to apply our commercial, residential and environmental design skills to a project of major significance in Asia.

"We are delighted that our client is keen to adopt a truly sustainable approach to the project and this forward-thinking attitude, combined with the application of practical and intelligent design, will result in a landmark scheme for Bangalore."

Described as India's Silicon Valley, Bangalore is one of the fastest growing cities in Asia thanks to a thriving IT and biotechnology industry.

A population of highly-skilled workers has led to high demand for a top quality city centre working and living environment.

The firm's growing reputation for an energy-conscious approach played a key part in the winning of the contract, which will see the team incorporate environmentally-aware and sustainable technology including photovoltaic panels, a bio-gasifier plant, on-site sewage treatment works and rainwater harvesting in order to reduce energy consumption.

The project team will also be working around existing trees on the site, to minimise disruption of the surrounding ecosystem.

Currently ranked 18th in the Architects Journal Top 100, RyderHKS employs 150 staff at its offices in Newcastle and London and has worked on many of the region's developments including 55 Degrees North, Cobalt Business Park and Citygate.

Its experts are also responsible for the master-planning of Newcastle Great Park, thought to be the biggest greenfield development site in the UK.

Govt’s well thought-out plan: Get the best, brightest to deliver, then humiliate them (http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=60286)

Bangalore’s unique urban task force, headed by Infosys CEO Nandan Nilekani, had started transforming the city. Other cities are looking at it as a model but here he’s mocked—and the A team firmly sidelined


BANGALORE, DECEMBER 5: ‘‘Why is everyone talking of bad roads? What were the IT leaders doing in the last five years? One of them was heading the Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF). Why did he not get the roads repaired?’’

The harangue couldn’t be stranger. Launching the diatribe is H D Revanna, Karnataka’s Public Works Minister and the man responsible for the city’s roads. His target: Nandan Nilekani, CEO of tech giant Infosys, and a tax-paying user of the roads.

Revanna’s father, former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda—who insists his party’s previous government did the most for Bangalore in the late 1990s—is equally scathing.

‘‘Now these ungrateful people are complaining of the coalition’s indifference towards IT (infotech) and demanding Central rule for Bangalore,’’ he says, the scorn barely concealed.

The rants against IT and Nilekani are the latest and the first public assaults on a unique public-private partnership, which had not only begun to transform Bangalore but was a harbinger on how urban governments could get top private expertise to help govern cities.

A bemused Nilekani reacted carefully to the outburst from Revanna, whose Janata Dal (Secular), the coalition partner of the Congress, shows little interest in Bangalore’s dangerous downslide.

Grounding model that worked

• The Bangalore Agenda Task Force was set up in 1998 with the mandate: make Bangalore a Singapore. The best private-sector minds worked with bureaucrats, revamping tax collection, public toilets, garbage pickup & more
• The BATF devised and launched a property tax self-assessment scheme, which other cities now want to adopt. In two years from 2000, the municipal corporation’s tax revenue doubled to Rs 200 crore
• BATF chief Nandan Nilekani even put in Rs 5 crore of his own money, half to revamp the corporation’s accounting system and half to employ urban planners and provide office infrastructure

‘‘It’s very clear that Bangalore was transforming itself,’’ Nilekani tells The Indian Express. ‘‘It’s also very clear that since February, there has been a dramatic decline in the governance of the city.’’

Venkatraman Ravichander, a BATF member who runs his own consulting firm, put it succinctly: ‘‘The BATF is in a comatose condition.’’

Why has the BATF and Nilekani—who put in about Rs 5 crore of his money to re-engineer the municipal corporation’s accounting system, to hire urban planners—been sidelined?

They were set up by the man Deve Gowda hates, former chief minister S M Krishna, who vowed to make Bangalore another Singapore.

‘‘His downfall was concurrent with our demise,’’ confessed another member of the BATF requesting anonymity. ‘‘If we get this model to work even now, Krishna will get the credit, and that’s the core of the problem.’’

It may seem particularly vindictive, destructive behaviour, but many bureaucrats moved into prominent positions by the Chief Minister and Deve Gowda simply ignore the BATF now.

Dharam Singh insists nothing has changed. ‘‘I have given them (BATF) full powers,’’ he says. ‘‘Who is stopping them from meeting?’’

‘‘The BATF was not designed to be a debating society,’’ says Nilekani. ‘‘It needs active decision-making and support from the government, service providers must become answerable.’’

Two Dharam Singh meetings with Nilekani and the BATF led to only handshakes and photo-ops: since then the chief minister has not bothered to even reply to two letters Nilekani sent him.

‘‘We’ve had good dosa with Dharam Singh, nothing else,’’ another BATF member said caustically. ‘‘Tomorrow, if he says come and slog, I will. But the heart of the model is that the political leadership of the day gives the mandate, and the administration takes its cues from there. We have no mandate, the administration no longer cares.’’

The BATF’s last proper meeting was in January. These half-yearly ‘‘summits’’ were normally day-long affairs—often attended by the chief minister—where the city’s works were evaluated, new targets fixed and plans made.

‘‘There was nowhere to hide,’’ recalled a bureaucrat who attended the meetings. ‘‘The Bangalore City Corporation, the Bangalore Development Authority—they all knew what they had to do and that they would be answerable if they did not.’’

The BATF members took no money for their work, so the city got professional help for free and Bangalore’s best minds knew they were indeed making a difference, a classic win-win situation.

As Nilekani noted, Bangalore is now competing for investment with cities like Singapore, Shanghai and Kuala Lumpur. Now if only Dharam Singh and his government realised that.

What a sorry excuse for human beings these parasites are.

Isn't it wonderful that Bangalore is functioning not because of Dharam, but inspite of him!

Anyone going to Bangalore this winter???

A few weeks back I had seen a pic of Bangalore (cannot find it now) and had seen some concrete structures sticking out of a construction site.

Today I found some small pics which match that pic (in my memory; I must have saved it somewhere).

And guess what? It's UBCity!

http://www.theubgroup.com/images/ubcity3.jpg

http://www.theubgroup.com/images/ubcity1.jpg

http://www.theubgroup.com/images/ubcity5.jpg

http://www.theubgroup.com/images/ubcity2.jpg

http://www.theubgroup.com/images/ubcity4.jpg

And here's some material from the site: http://www.theubgroup.com/infrastructure.html

USHERING INTELLIGENT CITY UB CITY

United Breweries (Holdings) Ltd. has also pioneered the development of prized real estate in the heart of Bangalore. It is constructing one of the largest mixed-use developments - UB City, in the heart of Bangalore. UB City will stand tall at the corner of Vittal Mallya Road and Kasturba Road, just 600 metres away from Bangalore's commercial hub, M. G. Road. Its internet ready intelligent buildings will demonstrate how chrome, glass and green leaves can seamlessly blend between modern edifices and serene flora.

When completed, UB CITY will house the UB Group offices under one roof - UB Tower. 'Concorde' & 'Canberra' will have retail space on the lower floors and office space in the higher levels, while 'Comet' will have serviced apartments. It will house commercial offices, banks, high-end retail stores, a five star hotel, serviced apartments, restaurants, food courts, pubs, health clubs and cafes. Multi-level parking areas will offer virtually unlimited parking spaces. Also on the blueprint is an amphitheatre with food courts and landscaped gardens. UB CITY will provide parking space for over 1,100 cars. Being an environment friendly project and keeping in mind the green surroundings of Cubbon Park, one-third of the space has been earmarked for landscaped gardens.


UB CITY, UBHL's joint venture with the Prestige Group of Bangalore, is making rapid progress and will change the skyline of Bangalore in less than two years. The site is bustling with men, equipment, cement and steeland each day brings about a noticeable change in each of the four towers.

The architects, Thomas Associates, will be presenting 100% drawings in October 2004.

In order to ensure that traffic within UBCITY's sprawling seven acres and within it's vicinity is properly regulated, a traffic consultanthas been specially hired.

The general outline of UB Tower is now clearly evident and nearly twelve floors of this majestic tower would be ready by the end of this year. Did you realise that the other three towers are all named after aircraft...and all beginning with the same alphabet...Comet,Canberra and Concorde. UBHL's proposedforay into aviation should not be all that surprising!

The east lift core of Canberra is nearly complete by using the novel slip form method and with it's twin at the western edge of the building, it provides a breathtaking expanse of this building which will have the largest floor plate within UB CITY.

The second slab of Concorde has been cast and this uniquely designed tower is also expected to be ready by 2006.

The entire project team has been sensitive to the needs of the neighbouring residential areas and all construction work is stopped after 11 pm.

An excellent scale model is now available at the Project Office in the UB CITY site which gives an excellent understanding of this massive project.

thats nice,:)
http://www.theubgroup.com/images/Ubnight.gif
guess Bangalore is fealing the pressure from Gurgaon-uprising;) :)

UBcity-rendering

I would like to see a photo of that model at the UB office.

BTW does anyone know the official website of Thomas Associates/Architects? They are pretty famous.

What is the height of the buildings in this. This thing could change the city. A metro rail, an airport and good rads, and Bangalore could be back at the top.

Those are some nice pics... but why name them after aircraft?

Those are some nice pics... but why name them after aircraft?

Because UB group is trying to get associated with the aviation industry in a big way. It already runs charters. Now it wants to fly Kingfisher Airline from next year (named after India's popular beer brand owned by them).

Those are some nice pics... but why name them after aircraft?

Why not? Builders always look for unique names to identify their buildings, and Concorde and Canberra are as good as any other name for them.

Okay ..here's the picture I was talking about in my first post..


http://www.bengalweb.com/skyline/bangalore/bangaloretallstruct.jpg

It's not very unique and I don't like it much, but atleast it will make a skyline...:) When will Bangalore's IT ppl start building tall and shiny towers?! And whatever happened to that WTB observation tower shitload....

Springfields
Springfields will have 600 apartments built in 3 phases. The ten apartment blocks will be each be 14 stories high.

Rendering

http://www.sigma.co.in/images/re_ga_b1.jpg

Construction Status

http://www.sigma.co.in/images/s1.jpg

More pics at http://www.sigma.co.in/re_proje.htm

'Airport, Metro Rail will be a reality'

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ SATURDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2004 01:28:57 AM ]

BANGALORE: The Bangalore international airport has got all the necessary clearances and the government will set the ball rolling on December 21, chief minister N. Dharam Singh said on Friday.


Speaking at the inauguration of Subramanyanagar police station in Bangalore North, he said Bangalore is now becoming the second most important city after New Delhi. This could be seen from the fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin had visited the city recently. "So, there is an urgent for a good airport in Bangalore to meet future demands."

Singh said the government will spend Rs 135 crore on developing and maintaining 940 km of roads in the city. The CM also spoke about the recently cleared High Tech City to provide infrastructure for IT and BT sectors at a cost of Rs 390 crore. He mentioned that the Metro Rail project for Bangalore would be taken up, and the Comprehensive Development Plan would be revised to accommodate a futuristic population of 1 crore
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/963080.cms

Lido Centre

http://www.gescosouth.com/projects/lido/images/lido.jpg

Gesco Lido Centre is being developed at the erstwhile Lido Theatre property situated at Municipal No.1/1 and 1/4 Swamy Vivekananda Road (an extension of Mahatma Gandhi Road).

The Centre has a total built up area 3,03,350 Sft and comprising of :

Hotel (143 room Hotel ISTA, Bangalore)
Banquet (600 seat capacity)
Multiplex (operated by Shringar)
Retail
Food Court


The GESCO group has built several landmarks in Mumbai and Pune..

http://www.gescosouth.com/projects/images/summit.jpghttp://www.gescosouth.com/projects/images/garden.jpg

http://www.gescosouth.com/projects/images/royale.jpghttp://www.gescosouth.com/projects/images/heights.jpghttp://www.gescosouth.com/projects/images/beleverde.jpg


More info at ...
http://www.gescosouth.com/

More news from Banalore.
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Science city near Bangalore
PTI
Hubli, December 20

An estimated Rs 70 crore Karnataka Vijnannagar (Karnataka Science City) — is proposed to be set up at Hesaraghatta near Bangalore, Minister for Science and Technology, Basavaraj S Horatti, said on Monday. The state government has already released Rs 5 crore for the proposed city, he said.

A Regional Science Centre would also be established at University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad, for which Rs 6.5 crore has been earmarked. The state government had already released Rs 25 lakh for the purpose, he said.

http://www.htnext.com/news/5922_1162525,001500230004.htm
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http://www.gescosouth.com/projects/images/beleverde.jpg

Gosh, this building looks so thin from this angle

Foot overbridges may bail out pedestrians (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/967331.cms)

Road accidents in Bangalore have claimed the lives of over 1,000 pedestrians in 10 years. Every death has been a grim reminder that our roads are not safe for crossing.

Yet, has anything been done about it? With traffic intersections allowing just 12 seconds for the pedestrian to cross the road, the solution perhaps lies in foot overbridges and underpasses.

Did the BCC respond to the requisition? It took up seven foot overbridges in the first stage, and "they will be ready in eight months," technical advisor R. Jayaprasad says.

That's not all: "We have plans for more; there will be 40 more overbridges in the next stage," Jayaprasad promises.

The BCC's overbridges have been designed by the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), who made one of the city's first overbridges to connect its campus. "The design is Scottish and the IISc helped us. We have planned a foot overbridge with an escalator as an experiment," the corporation said.

Foot overbridges cost less, but are more difficult to use. An underpass has fewer steps compared to foot overbridges, but costs more.

Since important junctions are difficult to cross because of high traffic, experts like BATF member Kalpana Kar vouch for foot overbridges: "They are absolutely essential. For starters, we need about 75 FOBs by next year. At the same time, their utilisation should be enforced. In K.R. Market and Shivajinagar, the subway is underutilised." Utilisation in fact is the other problem. The city's only public foot overbridge in Gandhinagar is underutilised. Only if enforcement is improved, will people use these bridges.

Flyover coming, won't jam busy Bangalore

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ MONDAY, JANUARY 10, 2005 12:21:48 AM ]

BANGALORE: Yet another flyover planned. Agitated about the traffic chaos it may bring during construction? Not to worry, say the authorities.

A model for future urban construction perhaps, this marvel is a huge, four-lane flyover that will be built on a steel girder high up in the sky, even as traffic flows uninterrupted on the road 10 metres below.

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has drawn this dream model for the harassed Bangalorean, who groans at the mere thought of a flyover under construction. The assurance: When the flyover takes off from Central Silk Board to Electronic city, there will be no vehicle gridlock, no jarring rides over broken road humps, but a smooth endless flow all through 18 months of project construction.

"All that is needed is planning and technology, which we have. We will ensure our software czars do not waste precious hours of foreign exchange, stuck in traffic," official sources told The Times of India .

The technocrats of Electronic City are funding nearly one-third the project cost. "We need to consider them. This model of public-private partnership, will also be a blueprint for how to build a super-structure in the middle of a busy metropolis," officials said.

The project will include four subways for the heavy pedestrian traffic to cross at Bommanahalli, Garvebhavipalya, Kudlu and Singasandra junctions. But Hosur Road will not be cut up, as is traditionally done: a 'box-pushing' technology where the subway is tunnelled in from the sides, will be adopted.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/985427.cms

Bangalore Metro on fast track?

http://deccanherald.com/deccanherald/jan112005/i4.asp
January 11 2005

The proposed Bangalore Metro is on a fast track for clearance, but will the Railway Ministry put a brake on it, a la Delhi Metro?

It could well be the situation if the ministry insists that Bangalore Metro should have the broad gauge (BG) system and not standard gauge (SG) as was planned by the Bangalore Mass Rapid Transit Limited (BMRTL) which will implement the Rs 6,000-crore project. The ministry, which gives technical clearance for the Metro, insists that there should be uniformity in its mainlines as well as in urban metro systems in the country.

According to the ministry, with BG, imports can be avoided in rolling stock and hence the foreign exchange outflow. A ministry official told Deccan Herald that coaches can be fully produced within the country and with that the cost of operation and maintenance comes down (BG rails as well as coaches have slightly more width than SG. BG track has 5ft 6 inches width while SG has 4ft 8 inches).

The BMRTL has different point of view and says SG has many advantages over BG. Mainly, the cost of the project will increase by nearly Rs 600 crore if the project has BG as the track for Bangalore. BG needs more property to be acquired because of the larger coach size. The BG coaches weigh two tonnes more than the SG coaches and energy consumed by SG coaches is less.

Congested areas
Said Mr K N Shrivastava, BMRTL Managing Director: “Taking the BG Metro into Bangalore creates complications. Bangalore Metro has to pass through heavily congested areas. The city roads are narrow and have sharp curves as well as right angled bends at junctions. The SG is advantageous since it permits adoption of curves as sharp as 120 metre radius compared to 200 for BG”. According to him, SG and BG use different technologies in many aspects such as signaling, rolling stock, traction system, ticketing etc. “Hence, because of these, inter-running of trains between Metro and the Indian Railway (IR) network is neither technically nor operationally feasible,” the MD stated.

He added: “Gauge is a planning and not a technical parameter and as such does not come within the purview of the railway ministry. Economic considerations alone should dictate planning parameters. Metro systems are stand-alone systems and its safety is proved the world over.

As for import of rolling stock, Bangalore Metro will not depend on import as indigenous manufacturing facilities are available”.

The BMRTL can circumvent the Railway Ministry by bringing the Bangalore Metro under the Mysore Tram Act but the state government does not want to confront the ministry. “I will meet the Railway Board chairman soon and discuss the issue”, Mr Shrivastava said and hoped that the ministry would heed the state proposal.
Delhi Metro Chief E Sreedharan had a bitter battle with the IR authorities over the gauge issue. The father of Delhi Metro was all for SG but the Rail Bhavan mandarins insisted that only BG should be implemented in Delhi Metro.

A murky battle
“It was a murky battle which went on for one and a half years and a Group of Ministers at the Centre had to be created to resolve the row”, said a Dehi Metro official. The IR had the last laugh.

At the last week’s meeting between Chief Minister Dharam Singh and Union Urban Development Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, it was suggested that when the Projects Investment Board discusses the Bangalore Metro issue in about a fortnight, it should also take into consideration the SG issue.
The two leaders are going to meet in Bangalore on January 12 and the SG-BG issue is expected to figure there.

Knightsbridge

http://www.citilightsindia.com/images/Knightsbridge.jpg

Seasons - a township

http://www.citilightsindia.com/images/1b.jpg

http://www.citilightsindia.com/images/2b.jpg

http://www.citilightsindia.com/images/4b.jpg

More projects at http://www.citilightsindia.com/

Akme Harmony http://www.akmeprojects.com/

http://www.akmeprojects.com/images/akmeHarmonylayout.jpg

http://www.akmeprojects.com/images/akmeHarmonyElv.jpg

Yo Suncity, if you can, show us the finished real projects once they are completed. I do like that Seasons township.

Bangalore airport pacts signed

The Karnataka government and Siemens-led consortium signed two agreements today, overcoming the last hurdles before the financial closure of the Rs 1,335-crore greenfield international airport near Devanahalli, about 35 kms from Bangalore.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050121/asp/business/story_4280240.asp

Bangalore airport pacts signed

The Karnataka government and Siemens-led consortium signed two agreements today, overcoming the last hurdles before the financial closure of the Rs 1,335-crore greenfield international airport near Devanahalli, about 35 kms from Bangalore.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050121/asp/business/story_4280240.asp

cool:)

so..the only thing left is the financial closure?:)

http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/jan262005/i3.asp

Bheem Bhai ut gaye !!

http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/jan262005/c5.asp

Brigade Group project updates

Brigade Millenium

Status - Dec 22, 2004

Magnolia - External painting nearing completion. Water, sanitary and electrical connections in progress. Podium landscaping in progress.

http://www.brigadegroup.com/apartments/millennium/magnolia/imgs/statusphoto/nov2004/magnolia01.jpg

Mayflower - Completed and Occupied

http://www.brigadegroup.com/apartments/millennium/mayflower/imgs/mayflower.jpg

Cassia -Masonry and Internal plastering completed upto 13th floor. External plastering and terrace water proofing under progress.

http://www.brigadegroup.com/apartments/millennium/cassia/imgs/statusphoto/nov2004/cassia01.jpg

Laburnum - 3rd Floor slab casting in progress. Block masonry work in the ground floor underway.

http://www.brigadegroup.com/apartments/millennium/laburnum/imgs/statusphoto/nov2004/leburnum01.jpg

Jacaranda - Terrace floor slab casting completed. Block masonry and flooring work underway at 14th floor.

http://www.brigadegroup.com/apartments/millennium/jacaranda/imgs/statusphoto/nov2004/jacaranda01.jpg

MLR Convention Centre: 2nd floor slab casting underway. Basement work in progress. It will have a a 450-seat auditorium with a professionally equipped stage and a 500-seat banquet area is available for exclusive functions.


http://www.brigadegroup.com/apartments/millennium/statusphotos/dec2004/mlr.jpg

http://www.brigadegroup.com/apartments/millennium/imgs/MLR02.jpg

Brigade Gardenia
Status 22 Dec, 2004

Glacier - 14th floor slab casting in progress. Block masonry work in the 11th floor underway.

http://www.brigadegroup.com/apartments/gardenia/glacier/imgs/statusphoto/nov2004/glacier01.jpg

Golden Magic - 13 floor slab casting in progress. Block masonry work in the 9th floor underway.

http://www.brigadegroup.com/apartments/gardenia/golden_magic/imgs/statusphoto/nov2004/gloden_magic01.jpg

Magnifica - 9th floor slab casting in progress.

http://www.brigadegroup.com/apartments/gardenia/magnifica/imgs/statusphoto/nov2004/magnifica01.jpg

Carinata - 1st floor slab casting completed.

http://www.brigadegroup.com/apartments/gardenia/carinata/imgs/statusphotos/dec2004/carinata01.jpg

Jardine - 10th floor slab casting in progress. Block masonry work in the 6th floor underway.

http://www.brigadegroup.com/apartments/gardenia/jardinei/imgs/statusphotos/nov2004/jardine01.jpg

GODREJ WOODSMAN ESTATE
Amco Batteries Compound, Habbel Plant, Bellari Road, Pyatianapuram, Bangalore-24

http://img236.exs.cx/img236/9555/godrejwoodsmanestate6wx.jpg

Sobha Magnolia

Bannerghatta Road

19 Floors

http://www.sobhadevelopers.com/projects/magnolia/images/magnolia.jpg

HM World City now has a website!

Enjoy!

http://www.hmworldcity.com/

And here are some renders:

Aerial
http://www.hmworldcity.com/images/img8big.jpg

Panoramic
http://www.hmworldcity.com/images/img4big.jpg

Commercial Block (notice Lagaan?)

http://www.hmworldcity.com/images/img7big.jpg

There's a news article on TOI on several proposed independent townships set to come up in the outskirts of Bangalore with FDI -
All-in-one townships take shape in IT city (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1014451.cms)

Highlights -

Ceylinco Shriram plans to set up an integrated township on the Old Madras Road on over 100 acres with an investment of Rs 120 crore.

The Adarsh group is believed to be looking at a similar project on the Outer Ring Road.

The Embassy group has plans for one near Hebbal.

The Prestige group, which has been vying for the 100-acre property belonging to D.K. Adikeshavulu in Whitefield, may use that property for a township that will have a World Trade Centre and a premium hotel.

The Centre has allowed 100 per cent FDI in integrated townships, provided these are developed on a minimum of 100 acres or has a minimum of 2,000 residential units.

A satellite town for Bangalore in the making (http://www.business-standard.com/bsonline/storypage.php?&autono=180841)

Consider this picture. Businessmen from Bangalore travelling to Hosur in Tamil Nadu from the Karnataka city’s suburbs near Electronic City, Bangalore’s hub of IT (information technology) activity (which houses companies like Infosys and Wipro), just like Delhiites commute to Gurgaon or Mumbakars to Navi Mumbai.

Hosur is a mere 30 km away from Electronic City and the Tamil Nadu government wants to make the industrial township a giant satellite town like Gurgaon or Noida.

“The study will assess the socio-economic and technological potential of Hosur as an IT destination. It will be done by one of the top five consultants and will be completed in three to six months,” says Vivek Harinarain, IT secretary, government of Tamil Nadu.

“We will consider building a 250,000 sq ft facility, on the lines of TIDEL Park in Chennai, at a cost of between Rs 35 crore and Rs 50 crore. This initiative, we hope, will create a light-house effect and boost investor confidence,” Harinarain says.

He says the Tamil Nadu government is likely to use a private-public partnership to upgrade Hosur’s present infrastructure, including schools, hospitals and shopping malls, to build Hosur into a viable satellite town.

The state government will provide all supporting infrastructural requirements such as land, sewerage, electricity and water.

The Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) plans on setting up a park at Hosur. The Union mMnistry of IT and Communications has asked the Tamil Nadu government to allot land for the building.

It is not as if Hosur doesn’t have anything other than its proximity to Bangalore going for it.

It has been an industrial hub for more than two decades now and home to the manufacturing plants of Ashok Leyland, Titan Industries, T.T. Prestige, Reckitt Benckiser, Hindustan Lever, Carborandum Universal and TVS Motors. So, the basic infrastructure is firmly in place.

http://www.gescosouth.com/projects/images/beleverde.jpg


is this building for real ? or has the artist forgot to put on the third dimension to the building ? man.. i will get a vertigo on this otherwise :eek2:

I just checked the UB inhouse magazine pegasus, and there they have posted some u/c pictures of the project. It's going at full swing and will be ready in totality by 2006. However, some part of the project will already get operational in the current year itself!

is this building for real ? or has the artist forgot to put on the third dimension to the building ? man.. i will get a vertigo on this otherwise :eek2:

Is that Belvedare Court in Mumbai.

Builders’ towering plans a boon to hotel-starved city
The Times of India

Bangalore: What started in Mumbai is now catching up in Bangalore. And for this “hotel-room-starved” city, this is one big stroke of luck.
Bangalore builders are constructing hotels on their own and handing them over to reputed hotel chains for running them under their own management.

Like their counterparts in Mumbai such as Hiranandani, Rahejas, Lokhandwala and Pride who had put hotel construction on a fast-forward mode, Bangalore builders like Prestige, Embassy, Gopalan and Adarsh are now drawing up plans for building hotels here and handing them over to branded hotel chains for management.

Prestige group, in its latest blueprint for hotels, is planning to come up with an independent five-star hotel project in Ulsoor. In the UB city, it has just completed a 200-service-apartment complex and handed over to Oakwood hotel chain for management. This is besides its joint venture with the Adhikeshavulu group in Whitefield, where the Radisson hotel chain is going to manage the show. Incidentally, in the UB city, the Mumbai-based Raheja group is also building a 300-room hotel which J.W. Marriott will manage.

While city-based Gopalan group has begun construction of its maiden hotel project in Whitefield and set to sign up with a global hotel chain later this month, the Embassy group is also coming up with a service apartment project overlooking the Karnataka Golf Association course. The Adarsh group, known for its Palm Meadows success in Whitefield, has not only built a service apartment complex there but is also coming up with its first hotel venture on Palace Road.

Sobha Developers had recently completed a 500-room service apartment complex, on the lines of a five-star hotel, for Infosys at its campus and is likely to look at more in future.

“The scarcity of hotel rooms in this city is becoming a nightmare. You just cannot get any rooms in hotels here even if you try to book three months ahead,” says Rezwan Razack, joint managing director, Prestige Projects.

City builders are realising this is a great option to embark on especially at a time when every enterprise is in a tearing hurry to kickstart its business. Says C. Prabhakar, director, Gopalan Enterprises: “Today, every company wants to drastically cut down the time-to-market. If we build a hotel with worldclass amenities, hotel chains are willing to immediately tie-up and take over the entire running of the hotel”.

Moreover, the builders are happy because hotel projects don’t have cumbersome processes like marketing their apartments, making changes as per their buyer requirement, registration and so on. By one stroke, the builder is relieved of these cumbersome processes. The completed building is handed over to the hotel chain which either pays a management fee or takes a part of the revenue.

ON THE ANVIL

Prestige group: An independent five-star hotel project in Ulsoor.
Gopalan group: Maiden hotel project in Whitefield.
Embassy group: A service apartment project overlooking Karnataka Golf Association course.
Adarsh group: First hotel venture on Palace Road.
Sobha Developers: Just completed a 500-room service apartment complex for Infosys at its campus.

Integrated township could show the way
The Times of India

Bangalore: In scale, size and concept, this is an absolute first for Bangalore. And it could be the beginning of a trend that some see as a way to decongest the city.

The Prestige Group, in association with D.K. Audikesavulu, member of Parliament and managing director of Chaitanya Properties, announced on Thursday the launch of what will be Bangalore’s first integrated township. The Rs 1,500-crore project will come up on the 105-acre Shantiniketan property in Whitefield owned by Audikesavulu. It will boast of a trade centre on the lines of the World Trade Centre and have over 3 million sqft of office and commercial space, more than what the ITPL currently has. It will have close to 3,000 apartments spread over 24 high-rise towers, a Forum mall with a five-screen multiplex, and a world-class convention centre.

The complex will also have the 5-star Radisson hotel, with 350 rooms and service apartments. The planning and design of the project has been done by RSP Architects Planners & Engineers, the group that did the planning and design for ITPL.

“We will complete the project by April 2008,” Irfan Razack, chairman and MD of Prestige Estates Projects, said. “It will be a fully integrated, ultra-modern township.” Audikesavulu had tried to develop this property in association with Unitech Ltd six years ago, but a crash in the property market soon after compelled a postponement of the venture.

Some half-a-dozen or more integrated township projects for Bangalore are said to be in various stages of planning. Shriram Properties and Sri Lanka-based Ceylinco Consolidated recently formed a joint venture which said it plans to set up an integrated township on the Old
Madras Road in an area of over 100 acres.

With foreign investment allowed in large integrated townships, foreign developers too are seen to be getting interested in such projects. Some urban planners see such projects bringing benefits in terms of encouraging people to stay away from the city centre and thereby decongesting it.

Metro rail for Bangalore in 4 years (21 Feb 2005)
PM News Bureau

Union Urban Development Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad has assured that the Centre will clear the Rs 4,000 crore Metro rail project which will be launched in two months' time, and expected to be completed in the next four years.
The UD Ministry has submitted certain clarifications to the Public Investment Board, after whose approval the matter will be placed before the Cabinet.
The project will see equity participation from both the Centre and state government, either by raising loan from the Japanese Bank for International Co-operation or through loans from local banks and financial institutions.


One more Bangalore flyover opens (21 Feb 2005)
PM News Bureau

Looks like the Garden City is in on a flyover spree. Union Urban Development Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad inaugurated the Bangalore Development Authority's 'Jayadeva', the sixth flyover at the intersection of Bannerghatta Road and BTM Layout Road -- the third in the last three months.
The flyover was completed by the BDA at a cost of Rs 21 crore, consisting of a four-arm intersection. Two arms form part of the Outer Ring Road and the other two link residential and commercial areas. The intersection can handle more than 15,000 vehicles per hour against the previous capacity of 8,000. The underpass and grade level roads are expected to be completed by June this year.

http://www.hafeezcontractor.com/corporateoffices/competitionjobs/ubgroup/1.jpg
http://www.hafeezcontractor.com/corporateoffices/competitionjobs/ubgroup/2.jpg
U.B. GROUP
At Banglore

Bangalore heralds the advent of mega townships

Netscribes / Manisha Khosla
February 09, 2005

After Delhi and Mumbai, where developers like DLF, Unitech and the Hiranandani group have constructed independent and self-sufficient townships, the garden city of Bangalore is following suit. Bangalore is witnessing the emergence of massive townships on its outskirts, which are being planned by large foreign and domestic builders.

Nearly six mega townships, promoted by leading builders, are on the anvil in Bangalore. The Prestige group is mulling the possibility of erecting a full-fledged township featuring a World Trade Centre and a premium hotel in Whitefield. The Ceylinco Shriram consortium will be investing approximately Rs 120 crores towards the development of an integrated township on 100 acres of land along the Old Madras Road. Similarly, the Adarsh group is in the process of identifying sites for development on the Outer Ring Road as is the Embassy group near Hebbal.

The proposed mega townships will have thousands of housing units. These shall be a judicious mix of apartments, row houses and cottages. Moreover the townships shall include commercial, retail, educational and medical facilities.

Increase in traffic and poor transport facilities is a major factor for the emergence of integrated townships. There is a growing need for accessibility to all necessities and comforts like malls, entertainment centres, schools and hospitals within handy distance. Also, investor-friendly government policies, which allow 100 per cent FDI in integrated townships developed on 100 acres and above or having a minimum of 2,000 residential units, have aided the inflow of huge sums of money required to construct such facilities.

Thus, just as in the West, India is seeing its large cities gravitate to the phenomenon of well-planned and self-dependent suburbs and townships developing on the outskirts.

Hey, looks like the 570+m Sky tower is back on track!

Freedom project breaks all chains (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1042267.cms)

BANGALORE: It's emancipation time finally for the Freedom Park project, slated to come up on the now-barren stretch of the erstwhile Central Jail. This, despite the glitches like time, money, land and permission.

Explains BCC special commissioner Subash Chandra: "The plan was approved by the BCC council and also by the horticulture department. The proposal has now gone to the government."

The new park is slated to have an information corridor with touch-screen galleries, a museum, a permanent water sheet, a musical fountain, and former mayor C.M. Nagaraj had also promised "the tallest tower".

Wow, Is it possible to get any renderings of the Sky Tower?

Brigade Metropolis, Whitefield Road

http://www.brigadegroup.com/apartments/metropolis/imgs/metropolis1.jpg

^^
hey thats looks nice

Presitge Shantiniketan

A townscape located in Whitefield and spread over 105 acres. It will have an expansive residential precinct, a World Trade Center, a Radisson Hotel, a Forum Mall, a world-class convention center and a five-screen multiplex.

Location

http://www.prestigeconstructions.com/shantiniketan/images/roadmap.gif

Layout

http://www.prestigeconstructions.com/shantiniketan/Images/siteplanbig.jpg

Aerial view (render)

http://img128.exs.cx/img128/9300/prestigeshantiniketan56ww.jpg

Another view (Render)

http://www.prestigeconstructions.com/shantiniketan/Images/soulspace_big.jpg

Forum Mall

http://www.prestigeconstructions.com/shantiniketan/Images/forum_big.jpg

The Commercial Crescent

http://www.prestigeconstructions.com/shantiniketan/Images/cc_big.jpg

As per the website, the project was launched on 27th Feb 2005. The response it seems was so overwhelming that they had 6000 enquiries on the first day itself. They sold out in just two days! These guys are also developing UBCity.

http://www.prestigeconstructions.com/ubcity/landing.htm

While all these projects are neat from a development context, they are all very self-contained. Bangalore looks like its defining what 'sprawl' will be in the Indian context. Mono-architectural, un-integrated, res-commercial developments insulated from the rest of the city by trees and gardens.

There is no sense of centralized development in Bangalore, no sense of urbanism. This is especially true in all Indian cities. No city-scale zoning plans, and no CBDs.

The architecture is campy and un-Indian. I am begining to dred that this.... thing... is whats representative of 2nd-tier city development in India....

This is especially true in all Indian cities. No city-scale zoning plans, and no CBDs.

Most Indian cities do have town planning and development authorities who decide on zoning stuff. In Bangalore, the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) is the competent authority while in the outskirts the Bangalore Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (BMRDA) is the regulating authority. Now whether they are doing a good job or not is a different issue.

************
Here's an article which seems to be relevant to the points you raise. But not sure who the architect is:

Big City Blues:

Indian cities are growing extremely rapidly and city administrations appear unable to handle this growth. What's the root of the problem?

City planning has for long been done with tools designed by the British during the Industrial Revolution for cities with a one-lakh population. This envisaged the city as a static entity, and compartmentalised the city, earmarking separate areas for categories like commercial and residential. So a homemaker today who may want to start a small business near her home may not be able to find a place to do so. This old vision has resulted in paralysis, inefficiencies and violations of law.

What then should be the approach?

Understand the dynamics of the city, understand market forces and accordingly frame regulations and by-laws. The need is for a framework that is adaptable and flexible. Different elements of a city — land use, transport, ecology, housing — should not be addressed separately. There's a need to understand the inter-relation amongst all these and have a holistic diagnosis. We must also take account of the new concerns like the environment. Major cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore are all working on new master plans which should help.

It has been suggested that satellite cities can take the pressure off the existing cities...

It is six times more expensive to build a satellite city than it is to reuse and rejuvenate the existing one. You have to acquire land, build infrastructure. How can Indian cities finance this? Delhi may be able to do it because it is the political capital. But other cities will not have the same capability. Besides, a city has its social life. It takes centuries to create a city and its social life. In a satellite city, you will have to artificially create a social life. It's just not the same thing.

Do you think pushing new developments to the periphery is the way to go? In Bangalore, for instance, IT development and new residential layouts are being encouraged on its outskirts.

In general, the objective should be to keep a city compact and not encourage urban sprawl. The more compact a city, the more cost effective it will be to provide infrastructure and public transport. It would also involve a great deal less commuting for citizens.

Is this trend international?

Globally, there are differences. But Indian cities can gain from being compact. Compare Atlanta (US) with Barcelona (Spain). Both cities have similar population figures (about 2.5 million in 1990), but Atlanta has a built-up area of 4,280 sq km and Barcelona a mere 162 sq km. In Atlanta, the longest possible distance is 137 km, in Barcelona it is only 37 km. The short trip distances due to high density in Barcelona make it possible for a significant number of trips to be done on foot or by bicycle. Barcelona is the ultimate city, an urban planner's dream. Most Europeans would love to live there. Everything — office, school, shops — is close by. If I want to buy bread, I don't have to take my car. And the compactness builds a strong community feeling.

What's the road ahead for Bangalore?

Cities like Bangalore are currently going the American way. This can be very costly in terms of infrastructure building. Bangalore wants a metro rail system. But it will be impossible to promote a metro if you encourage a more spread-out city. The cost will be prohibitive and the system, if set up, will be a huge waste.

Are you suggesting that population in major Indian cities be increased to higher levels?

It is a myth that Indian cities are congested. In Paris, there are 600 inhabitants per hectare, in Mumbai it's 390 and in Bangalore it's 210. In the central business districts (CBD) of some cities, where property prices are the highest, it may be desirable to have higher floor space indices (FSI) to encourage taller/larger buildings. Otherwise, there would be a tendency to build away from the CBD, resulting in urban sprawl. The efficiencies emerging from a compact city will generate funds to invest in infrastructure to address higher densities. You can even have public-private partnerships for land development, under which the private party agrees to create infrastructure and other amenities in an area in lieu of concessions like a higher FSI.

Are older parts of the city a burden on the modern city?

In Bangalore, for instance, the historical core — the Chickpet-Cottonpet area — is perceived as dense, unsafe, hotbed of violence and illegal activities. But we feel this area is vibrant and extremely dynamic, providing jobs and major economical inputs. Consequently, de-densification and infrastructural activities in the area must very carefully be assessed in terms of its impact on the local economy and labour market. The identity of the area as a distinct historic core must be enhanced. The area must receive special attention due to its economic and historical importance

Never seen any images of UB City. Do you folks have any details? Even the link you have below seems to not give any indication of what they are trying to build.

As per the website, the project was launched on 27th Feb 2005. The response it seems was so overwhelming that they had 6000 enquiries on the first day itself. They sold out in just two days! These guys are also developing UBCity.

http://www.prestigeconstructions.com/ubcity/landing.htm

Well it aint exactly what you would call a 'city' but details on it an be found on the '2nd' page of the 'Projects' subforum, under the thread title of 'UB City'

Welcome to the forum

From the plan it appears the parking lots planned also seem disrportionate to the malls, hotels and convention centers they are trying to build.

Well it aint exactly what you would call a 'city' but details on it an be found on the '2nd' page of the 'Projects' subforum, under the thread title of 'UB City'

Welcome to the forum

Thanks... for the welcome and the direction. They are pretty stingy with the plans.. maybe they are changing it based on their available budget.

When will they start building taller? A 15 storey WTC....hmmm well at least the projects look very nice. The township itself is wonderful, but just a few taller towers, instead of the "low rise, spread out" style would've been better.

Hmmm very very nice. I do not care if the buildings are not tall. Heaven itself would not have looked better. Lets see how it will look when all this is completed

It looks decent.

Rs. 95 crs. for airport, Rs. 109 crs. for Metro Rail

http://www.hindu.com/2005/03/12/stories/2005031202340600.htm

Man there is sooo much happeining in Bangalore. What is the "freedom park"?. Someone plz give some info. Sounds very exciting indeed!
p.s. - u know what i pray to god atleast three times a week? for the sky tower to come up:)

I want info on it too.
Is it a yes or no? Will it be the start of an Indian Skyline of Sky scrapers?

http://www.architexturez.net/FILES/archive/document.archive/i/process-media/mga-fp.shtml

This was the original design... I believe it has undergone some change since based on the whims and fancies of the BMP.

Thanks for the designs magestom.. I do not see the designs of the 570 meter sky tower. I thought it was a part of the freedom park

Like I said the design has been chopped and changed around so much by Corporation that the final outcome will be hardly recognizable by anyone as the same one that won the design competition.

If I remember right the sky tower was a concept introduced by either the commissioner or the mayor of the previous govt I am not sure if it was a part of the original design. I also heard they will not be retaining any portion of the prison as a part of the design. From what I know the prison has been razed to the ground.

Only the amphitheater might be retained and will end up looking like just another park if funding is this is not a priority for the city administrators.

Here it is... It was BMP's idea

Tower to pitchfork Bangaloreans to skies

Source : Deccan Herald
Published : January 3, 2004

Bangalore City will soon have a major tourist attraction with the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) gearing up to construct the world’s tallest sky-tower at the old Central Jail premises in the heart of the city.

The 576-metre tall sky-tower, with a width of 30 metres, will be constructed at an estimated cost of Rs 90 crore, Bangalore Mayor P R Ramesh told Deccan Herald. At present, Toronto’s Canadian National Tower holds the title for the world’s tallest sky-tower with a height of 553 metres.

The tower would come up at the Freedom Park, which has been planned at the old Central Jail premises at a cost of Rs 5 crore. Visitors would be allowed to climb up the tower, which would provide a panoramic view of Bangalore City, Mr Ramesh said.

The BMP has decided to hand over the construction of the tower to a private company on a Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) system. The construction company will not only build the tower but also manage it for several years before handing it over to the BMP. Space would be sold to commercial establishments at the proposed tower.

According to the Mayor, the blue print for the construction has already been prepared. Tenders would be invited for the construction after getting clearance from the general body meeting of the BMP Council to be held next month

The State Government, which shifted the Central Jail from Seshadri Road to Parappana Agrahara, has handed over the 21-acre old jail premises on a 25-year lease to the BMP to develop into the Freedom Park.

I thought the plan was discarded after the CM changed.

And that article is old. January 2004!
I want new news on it,.

NRI to build India's largest 'shoppertainment' mall:

http://www.newkerala.com/news-daily/news/features.php?action=fullnews&id=87035

[India News]: Bangalore, March 17 : After building royal palaces, majestic villas, grandiose mosques and posh hotels in the Gulf, a non-resident Indian has set his sights on India's Silicon Valley to build the country's largest retail mall.

P.N.C. Menon, who has lived in Oman for the last three decades, is embarking on his new venture - Sobha Global Mall in the heart of the city at an estimated cost of Rs.15 billion ($345 million).

"As of today, our upcoming mall project will be the largest in India, spread over 17 acres with a built up area of 2.8 million sq. feet. The mall complex is being developed on the site where old Minerva Mills of the National Textile Corporation (NTC) was located. It was bought for Rs.660 million ($15 million) in an open auction.

Apart from a shopping complex, an amusement park, 192-room plush hotel, convention centre, multiplex and smart offices, the mall will boast of an Olympic size ice skating rink, the first of its kind in the sub-continent," Menon told reporters Thursday.

I don't know when this pic was taken. Maybe sometime in 2004. Pic by PPomunda.

http://img132.exs.cx/img132/48/bangaloreaerial215qd.jpg

The picture was probably taken from the top of the Public Utility building, the tallest existing building in Bangalore. It has a revolving restaurant on the top, that has a lovely view of Bangalore. How high are the two new towers of UB City? Will they be taller than the Utillity building?

The picture was probably taken from the top of the Public Utility building, the tallest existing building in Bangalore. It has a revolving restaurant on the top, that has a lovely view of Bangalore. How high are the two new towers of UB City? Will they be taller than the Utillity building?

No clue. If someone knows share the info with us...

No clue. If someone knows share the info with us...

A little search yielded the following info. Probably common knowledge already.

UB Group Website (http://www.ubindia.com/redefining-bangalore.htm)

http://img89.exs.cx/img89/3381/ubnight8up.jpg

A Beautiful Flash render of the design is available on the web site

UB City Flash Rendering (http://www.ubindia.com/)

http://img228.exs.cx/img228/3854/ubcity16bn.jpg

http://img74.exs.cx/img74/6126/ubcity21vm.jpg

http://img80.exs.cx/img80/9633/ubcity34jx.jpg

http://img191.exs.cx/img191/4093/ubcity57nt.jpg


http://www.theubgroup.com/infrastructure.html


USHERING INTELLIGENT CITY UB CITY

United Breweries (Holdings) Ltd. has also pioneered the development of prized real estate in the heart of Bangalore. It is constructing one of the largest mixed-use developments - UB City, in the heart of Bangalore. UB City will stand tall at the corner of Vittal Mallya Road and Kasturba Road, just 600 metres away from Bangalore's commercial hub, M. G. Road. Its internet ready intelligent buildings will demonstrate how chrome, glass and green leaves can seamlessly blend between modern edifices and serene flora.


When completed, UB CITY will house the UB Group offices under one roof - UB Tower. 'Concorde' & 'Canberra' will have retail space on the lower floors and office space in the higher levels, while 'Comet' will have serviced apartments. It will house commercial offices, banks, high-end retail stores, a five star hotel, serviced apartments, restaurants, food courts, pubs, health clubs and cafes. Multi-level parking areas will offer virtually unlimited parking spaces. Also on the blueprint is an amphitheatre with food courts and landscaped gardens. UB CITY will provide parking space for over 1,100 cars. Being an environment friendly project and keeping in mind the green surroundings of Cubbon Park, one-third of the space has been ear-marked for landscaped gardens.

UB CITY, UBHL's joint venture with the Prestige Group of Bangalore, is making rapid progress and will change the skyline of Bangalore in less than two years. The site is bustling with men, equipment, cement and steel and each day brings about a noticeable change in each of the four towers.

In order to ensure that traffic within UB CITY's sprawling seven acres and within it's vicinity is properly regulated, a traffic consultant has been specially hired.

The general outline of UB Tower is now clearly evident and nearly twelve floors of this majestic tower would be ready by the end of this year. Did you realise that the other three towers are all named after aircraft...and all beginning with the same alphabet...Comet,Canberra and Concorde. UBHL's proposed foray into aviation should not be all that surprising!

The east lift core of Canberra is nearly complete by using the novel slip form method and with it's twin at the western edge of the building, it provides a breathtaking expanse of this building which will have the largest floor plate within UB CITY.

The second slab of Concorde has been cast and this uniquely designed tower is also expected to be ready by 2006.

The entire project team has been sensitive to the needs of the neighbouring residential areas and all construction work is stopped after 11 pm.

An excellent scale model is now available at the Project Office in the UB CITY site which gives an excellent understanding of this massive project

^^hey thanks for the update sherlock01:)

From the reders it looks like the buildings would have a maximum of 25-30 floors each. Did you notice the uncanny resemblance of the third tall building (from left to right) to New York's Empire State Building?

25-30 stroies seems about right, including the spire should be at least 110m tall??

Yeah that building is a bit of a 'rip off' of the empire state building. lol.

Though UB City aint exactly supertall at least its in the heart of Bangalore, and will redefine its currently bland skyline.

That looks to be an older rendering. Suncity posted one showing a much more unique building taking its place, over on SSP

here we go
http://img215.exs.cx/img215/5436/ubcity75tx.jpg

But there is no confirmation about the accuracy of those renders.

Looks good!
Lets see how it will look in real life. This will certainly change the Bangalore skyline. it will look much better

Sun,

Where did you find the second render?

The new designs look much better. Good to see its going up.

Sun,

Where did you find the second render?

In one of he many UB sites. Don't remember which one.

There is supposedly a full scale model of the project at their HQ in BLR. We only need someone in BLR to go get a photo. But I am not sure we have anyone in BLR who is a member of this site.

Purvankara launches Fountain Square

Renders

http://www.puravankara.com/purvanew/fountainsquare/images/fount11.jpg

http://www.puravankara.com/purvanew/images/h_newproject_06.jpg

Layout

http://www.puravankara.com/purvanew/fountainsquare/images/layout.jpg

Rs 200-cr Sigma Grand Mall coming up in Bangalore

http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEB20050324083416&Page=B&Title=Business&Topic=0&

Can someone please give me info on the Bangalore tower. The one that is supposed to be the tallest in the world. I want some updates on it.

its not true..

worlds tallest building will not come to india even after 50 years

Do you have any reason why not? I'm pretty positive there is no such contsruction in Bangalore right now, but in the future its very possible.

its not true..

worlds tallest building will not come to india even after 50 years

Well if the WTC is built (In bombay) we would have the top 5 tallest towers in the world.

I dont think theres any tall tower being built in Bangalore right now though.

the reason is simple..all our cities are big enough,they are growing more horizontally..
such tall structures can come only if there is non availability of land..
if suppose andaman islands become a commercial hub&world renowned tourist spot then we can expect such a tower there cos of little land availability..
one thing im sure if such building is being built in india ,it will be surley in Mumbai not in bangalore..

I don't know about now, but in the future I think its very possible. India is very crowded and in the future land will cost even more so people will be forced to build up instead of sideways.

There are very few planned cities in India, in rest all others the city expands just like that without proper vision..we are not making any new cities..we can make new city well planned to tackle all needs,in such a location tall buildings of world standards(in trems of height) can be built

Can someone please give me info on the Bangalore tower. The one that is supposed to be the tallest in the world. I want some updates on it.


Sure... its right here (http://skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=3585663&postcount=157). They were "Gearing up" for it... and they still are.

Wow, I wasn't aware of this! :eek2:

anymore info?

if any such tower wil ever come up in India, then it will most surely come up in Mumbai and not bangalore...atleast the scenery from the Mumbai tower wil be worth watching.. than from tower in bangalore....

If the story's true..i hope it comes up....good for India....

Why did the cancel it. Will they put anything in its place

^^^ I think that tower was cancelled after the change in govt which did not want to spend money on "wasteful" stuff like a tower.

Garuda Mall

http://img165.exs.cx/img165/8609/garudamallblt6hv.jpg

and some old info about it

http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/may012004/metro1.asp

Second JW Marriott Hotel in India planned for Bangalore (http://www.asiatraveltips.com/news05/293-Bangalore.shtml)

29 March 2005


Marriott is to operate a new JW Marriott in Bangalore, the Garden City, India, under a management agreement with Gstaad Hotels. The 250-room property is scheduled to open in early 2007. The property will be the second JW Marriott in India.

The JW Marriott Hotel Bangalore will be part of a 14-acre development that will also include the new headquarters for United Breweries (UB) Group and UB City, a one million-square-foot mixed-use development offering prime office and retail space. The hotel will be situated on a three-acre site at the corner of Kasturba Road and Vittal Mallya Road, boasting sweeping views of UB City and overlooking the 350-acre Cubbon Park in the center of Bangalore.

The JW Marriott Hotel Bangalore will be located in close proximity to the heart of the city’s commercial center and high-end residential neighborhoods, Bangalore’s race course and golf course, and the Palace Gardens, in addition to the primary retail and entertainment areas of the city center. The airport is approximately a 25-minute drive away.

“We are thrilled by the continued growth of our portfolio in India and the addition of this second JW Marriott hotel,” said Ed Fuller, president and managing director of international lodging for Marriott International. “Bangalore is one of India’s most important commercial centers, and we are confident that this stunning hotel in an excellent location in the heart of the city will be a welcomed addition to the city’s business and tourism infrastructure.”

For dining and entertainment, the JW Marriott Hotel Bangalore will have a 24-hour multi-cuisine brasserie; three specialty restaurants, one of which will offer al fresco poolside dining; and the Bangalore Baking Company, a 24-hour coffee shop. It will also feature a lobby lounge and bar, a pool bar and a night club. Recreational amenities will include a spa featuring five treatment rooms, a swimming pool, and a health and fitness center. Additionally, the hotel will have a 24-hour multi-purpose business center, an extensive executive level and retail shops.

For conferences and social events, the JW Marriott Hotel Bangalore will offer 1,140 square meters of space, including a 600-square-meter ballroom that will be divisible into three sections; three additional meeting rooms in varying configurations, one of which will be divisible into two sections, and one boardroom.

^^^

So UBCity is developing nicely.

Wonder if there is someone in BLR to get us some pics of the UBCity model.

I am going to Bangalore in July. Have a house there

I am going to Bangalore in July. Have a house there

Thats good news!, please take some pictures if you can:)

^ Yes, please do! Any pics are appreciated! :)

Apparently after tasting success in Gurgaon, DLF is on the verge of rapidly expanding into other markets of India. Its latest entry is the already bursting-at-the-seams megapolis Bangalore. Here is a rendering of the project that DLF has in mind for this city:

http://img177.exs.cx/img177/8110/itparkbangaloreimg1nd.jpg

More land likely for electronics units

http://www.hindu.com/2005/04/07/stories/2005040705130600.htm

http://tinypic.com/2n57a1
http://tinypic.com/2n57iq
Cognizant Technology Solutions Plant-project, at a press conference in Bangalore on February 24, 2005. Photo: G.R.N. Somashekar

The multistoried parking lot-cum-commercial complex ‘Garuda’, built by the Bangalore City Corporation and Maverick Holdings & Investment, which was inaugurated on Magarath Road in Bangalore on Monday.

http://newindpress.com/images/apr05/12ktk.jpg

UB City by June 2006 (http://www.hindu.com/2005/01/21/stories/2005012104170500.htm)

BANGALORE, JAN. 20, 2005. The UB City project on Vittal Mallya Road here, being promoted by the UB Group, will be completed in June 2006. One lakh square feet has been pre-leased by a single corporate tenant.

The Chairman of the UB Group and MP, Vijay Mallya, told presspersons here on Thursday that the group will not sell space though there is an "overwhelming" demand for it. The group will lease out space.

The multicrore project is coming up over 10 acres of land with three acres are devoted to the construction of workspace on the five medium and high-rise towers.

Can someone give me directions to the UB city site. I will be going to Bangalore during July to August. I will also be going to Cochin and all over Tamil Nadu. I will take pictures of the highways. What are all the stuff I can take pictures of in Bangalore?

Can someone give me directions to the UB city site. I will be going to Bangalore during July to August. I will also be going to Cochin and all over Tamil Nadu. I will take pictures of the highways. What are all the stuff I can take pictures of in Bangalore?

L&T South city, Purvankara projects near IIMB
Tumkur road Tolled highway
Underpass near Bangalore palace
NIC (Nandi Infr. corridor) highway to Mysore
Outer Ring road
Elevated expressway to Electonics city, if constr. started
Metro Rail construction (heard it started off, finally)
Bangalore Airport @ Devanahalli

Can someone give me directions to the UB city site. I will be going to Bangalore during July to August. I will also be going to Cochin and all over Tamil Nadu. I will take pictures of the highways. What are all the stuff I can take pictures of in Bangalore?

UB City is at the intersection of Kasturba road and Vital Mallya road overlooking cubbon park. Kasturba road is the road which leads from Chinnaswamy cricket stadium towards Kanteerava staduim and Hudson circle and has the Art & technical meseums on it. If you were to take a rick from MG Road ask him to head to Mallya hospital or ask for Vital Mallya road you will notice the construction to your left at the 5 road intersection.

edit - oops wrong thread

Australia's UNIBIC to make Bangalore its overseas hub

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blnus/19201301.htm

Bangalore biotech park work to begin in June

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1086014.cms

Does anyone know of websites for banglore-based architectural/constuction/real-estate/etc firms?

Photos and news out of Banglore show an increasingly and increasingly developed city, and I think we may be missing out on by not cataloguing new projects, like in the Chennai, etc. threads

Perspective view of Cyber Park under construction at Electronics City, Bangalore
http://www.lntecc.com/gallery/images/53/big3.jpg

Perspective view of Cyber Park under construction at Electronics City, Bangalore
http://www.lntecc.com/gallery/images/53/big3.jpg

Nice sleek looking design.

Does anyone know of websites for banglore-based architectural/constuction/real-estate/etc firms?

Photos and news out of Banglore show an increasingly and increasingly developed city, and I think we may be missing out on by not cataloguing new projects, like in the Chennai, etc. threads

Jai, I am not sure if this page will help you to find Bangalore-based firms, but what it does have is one complete list of Indian construction majors.

http://www.knowindia.net/construction.htm

Yeah!! Go Bangalore!!
That DLF park looks damn sleek! I wish DLF gets build some really tall building. They seem to be very,very, very competent bunch of people. The cyber park is another sleek project. I cannot wait to see what comes up next in this city. I think in another 5 years, Bangalore will havea cityscape similar to Xi'an, China.

Not sure where this should go, so am going to cross post this in the 3 cities projects threads that this is most pertinent for. Here is an editorial from Shekar Gupta in the Indian Express. I think this guy was also the pioneer behind the Bangalore Crumbling series.

Maximum city, minimum programme

From Mumbai to Gurgaon, Delhi to Bangalore, Cong has the keys to our key urban engines. Look how it’s switching them off, one by one

SHEKHAR GUPTA

In the middle of the commotion in Parliament over the past two weeks Sonia Gandhi may have noted, probably with a bit of concern, the diminishing of two of her more important chief ministers. Vilasrao Deshmukh, mostly has himself to blame for his humiliation. What else can you say for the chief minister of India’s second largest, and second richest, state if he has to present himself in Delhi to explain to his party president his policy over an issue of such urgent national importance as a ban on Mumbai’s dance bars. This, when his state is facing its starkest power crisis in a decade, with public protests, if not power riots yet, in a dozen cities.

To be fair to Deshmukh, however, both he and his party can claim that he is also a victim of the stupidity of their coalition partners. The Talibanesque morality campaign is the obsession of his NCP home minister, R.R. Patil. His fault, if anything, is pusillanimity of a kind that is alarmingly becoming the hallmark of Congress chief ministers.

The other Congress chief minister cannot be described as pusillanimous by any stretch of imagination. Sheila Dikshit is hard as nails. She is also the Congress party’s most popular chief minister (in her domain), and also the most successful, being the only chief minister to be re-elected in a very long time and then capping it with a near clean sweep in Lok Sabha in Delhi, which was always considered a BJP territory. But, just as Deshmukh has had to pay for his spinelessness, Sheila is being punished for daring to have an identity of her own. And punished by whom? By complete nonentities like Jagdish Tytler, who can barely hang on to that most pitiable wooden spoon, the ministry of NRI affairs, and by a gentleman called Ram Babu sharma. Now who’s that, you might ask me. Let me suggest you stand on any street-corner and ask a hundred people who pass by that question. If more than a couple can answer that correctly, I am happy to go back to journalism school. But it is these people, encouraged by a whole gang of state, and stateless, plotters in the party who have made a public spectacle of their most important chief minister, hauling her up in public like an errant schoolchild, planting stories against her in the media, extorting (in terms of enhanced constituency funds) and other favours from her, and generally diminishing her status.

The political message in this is that the party has learnt nothing from past experience. Whenever it has humiliated or removed an incumbent chief minister, it has paid heavily for it. This goes back to Indira Gandhi and T. Anjaiah, without which the NTR phenomenon would never have happened. But of more immediate concern is what it means to Delhi and Mumbai, the two engines that drive India and which the Congress party controls. Of great consequence, similarly, is what this means to Manmohan Singh’s and the CMP’s great promise of urban renewal, of building Mumbai into another Shanghai and of making Delhi India’s most sparkling city in the run-up to the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

For any of those promises to be kept, the Congress needs chief ministers in Maharashtra and Delhi who can cut red tape, canvass for resources and drive change. What they have got, instead, is one that is entirely short of ideas and focus, and politically knee-capped. And another who is punch-drunk and angry, not knowing what she has done wrong except perhaps a slightly petulant public display of anger at dissidence by people who mostly owe their elected offices to her.

If things look bad in Delhi and Mumbai, turn your attention to Bangalore. Dharam Singh, the chief minister of the Congress-led coalition there, has been a lame-duck from Day One, not taken seriously by his own partymen and pushed around by H.D. Deve Gowda. He now leads the most fragile state government in the country and it would be a real surprise if it doesn’t fall within this year, leading to fresh elections in Karnataka. Sheila Dikshit still has the spine and the savvy to recover. Maharashtra can see the return of some sanity if Sonia Gandhi and Sharad Pawar both focus on it. But Karnataka looks like a lost cause altogether.

The overall effect, however, is that there is now a shadow on the future of India’s three most important urban centres, its political capital, financial heartland and new economy showpiece.

We have heard a lot of talk of villages in the past year. But the truth is, if our major urban centres rot and decay, so will the rest of the country. Like all rapidly developing countries, India is urbanising at a fast pace. Some of its more developed states — Kerala, Gujarat — are already ‘‘reurbanised’’. Big cities are both cradles and magnets for enterprise and creativity. India cannot grow if its major urban centres are allowed to decay and die.

Sonia Gandhi, therefore, has a special responsibility. Her party controls not just Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, but also other upcoming modern urban centres, from Hyderabad to Pune, from Chandigarh to Gurgaon. India cannot grow if these urban centres are trapped in assorted crises like power cuts (Pune), political indiscipline (Delhi), an infrastructure freeze (Bangalore), a water shortage (Gurgaon) and that most ridiculous man-made calamity of all, the wave of Talibanesque conservatism in Mumbai, the lure of which cuts across party lines, with one side working full time to fight that menace for national security and family values called bar girls, and the other telling women that if they wear low-waist jeans they should expect to be raped.

You do not compensate the villages for any neglect by letting the cities go to the dogs now. As the history of modern development has shown elsewhere, particularly in China, economic growth is invariably linked to rapid urbanisation. That is already happening in India, and the process will only hasten with the national highway development programme. It is now for our political leadership, particularly Sonia, Manmohan Singh and the Congress, to decide what kind of cities we will leave behind for our future generations, like a modernising Delhi with its improving traffic, air quality, power and water, or a decaying Mumbai that will soon be so choked, so eaten up by slums and with such a decline in the quality of life that, forget becoming the financial capital of Asia, it may indeed see a flight of capital to rival Kolkata’s in its darkest decades.

http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=69444

As an aside, this is the 2nd time in 3 days I have come across an article saying that Mumbai is headed the way of Kolkata during its dying decades...sign of things to come???

Not sure where this should go, so am going to cross post this in the 3 cities projects threads that this is most pertinent for. Here is an editorial from Shekar Gupta in the Indian Express. I think this guy was also the pioneer behind the Bangalore Crumbling series.

Maximum city, minimum programme

From Mumbai to Gurgaon, Delhi to Bangalore, Cong has the keys to our key urban engines. Look how it’s switching them off, one by one

SHEKHAR GUPTA

In the middle of the commotion in Parliament over the past two weeks Sonia Gandhi may have noted, probably with a bit of concern, the diminishing of two of her more important chief ministers. Vilasrao Deshmukh, mostly has himself to blame for his humiliation. What else can you say for the chief minister of India’s second largest, and second richest, state if he has to present himself in Delhi to explain to his party president his policy over an issue of such urgent national importance as a ban on Mumbai’s dance bars. This, when his state is facing its starkest power crisis in a decade, with public protests, if not power riots yet, in a dozen cities.

To be fair to Deshmukh, however, both he and his party can claim that he is also a victim of the stupidity of their coalition partners. The Talibanesque morality campaign is the obsession of his NCP home minister, R.R. Patil. His fault, if anything, is pusillanimity of a kind that is alarmingly becoming the hallmark of Congress chief ministers.

The other Congress chief minister cannot be described as pusillanimous by any stretch of imagination. Sheila Dikshit is hard as nails. She is also the Congress party’s most popular chief minister (in her domain), and also the most successful, being the only chief minister to be re-elected in a very long time and then capping it with a near clean sweep in Lok Sabha in Delhi, which was always considered a BJP territory. But, just as Deshmukh has had to pay for his spinelessness, Sheila is being punished for daring to have an identity of her own. And punished by whom? By complete nonentities like Jagdish Tytler, who can barely hang on to that most pitiable wooden spoon, the ministry of NRI affairs, and by a gentleman called Ram Babu sharma. Now who’s that, you might ask me. Let me suggest you stand on any street-corner and ask a hundred people who pass by that question. If more than a couple can answer that correctly, I am happy to go back to journalism school. But it is these people, encouraged by a whole gang of state, and stateless, plotters in the party who have made a public spectacle of their most important chief minister, hauling her up in public like an errant schoolchild, planting stories against her in the media, extorting (in terms of enhanced constituency funds) and other favours from her, and generally diminishing her status.

The political message in this is that the party has learnt nothing from past experience. Whenever it has humiliated or removed an incumbent chief minister, it has paid heavily for it. This goes back to Indira Gandhi and T. Anjaiah, without which the NTR phenomenon would never have happened. But of more immediate concern is what it means to Delhi and Mumbai, the two engines that drive India and which the Congress party controls. Of great consequence, similarly, is what this means to Manmohan Singh’s and the CMP’s great promise of urban renewal, of building Mumbai into another Shanghai and of making Delhi India’s most sparkling city in the run-up to the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

For any of those promises to be kept, the Congress needs chief ministers in Maharashtra and Delhi who can cut red tape, canvass for resources and drive change. What they have got, instead, is one that is entirely short of ideas and focus, and politically knee-capped. And another who is punch-drunk and angry, not knowing what she has done wrong except perhaps a slightly petulant public display of anger at dissidence by people who mostly owe their elected offices to her.

If things look bad in Delhi and Mumbai, turn your attention to Bangalore. Dharam Singh, the chief minister of the Congress-led coalition there, has been a lame-duck from Day One, not taken seriously by his own partymen and pushed around by H.D. Deve Gowda. He now leads the most fragile state government in the country and it would be a real surprise if it doesn’t fall within this year, leading to fresh elections in Karnataka. Sheila Dikshit still has the spine and the savvy to recover. Maharashtra can see the return of some sanity if Sonia Gandhi and Sharad Pawar both focus on it. But Karnataka looks like a lost cause altogether.

The overall effect, however, is that there is now a shadow on the future of India’s three most important urban centres, its political capital, financial heartland and new economy showpiece.

We have heard a lot of talk of villages in the past year. But the truth is, if our major urban centres rot and decay, so will the rest of the country. Like all rapidly developing countries, India is urbanising at a fast pace. Some of its more developed states — Kerala, Gujarat — are already ‘‘reurbanised’’. Big cities are both cradles and magnets for enterprise and creativity. India cannot grow if its major urban centres are allowed to decay and die.

Sonia Gandhi, therefore, has a special responsibility. Her party controls not just Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, but also other upcoming modern urban centres, from Hyderabad to Pune, from Chandigarh to Gurgaon. India cannot grow if these urban centres are trapped in assorted crises like power cuts (Pune), political indiscipline (Delhi), an infrastructure freeze (Bangalore), a water shortage (Gurgaon) and that most ridiculous man-made calamity of all, the wave of Talibanesque conservatism in Mumbai, the lure of which cuts across party lines, with one side working full time to fight that menace for national security and family values called bar girls, and the other telling women that if they wear low-waist jeans they should expect to be raped.

You do not compensate the villages for any neglect by letting the cities go to the dogs now. As the history of modern development has shown elsewhere, particularly in China, economic growth is invariably linked to rapid urbanisation. That is already happening in India, and the process will only hasten with the national highway development programme. It is now for our political leadership, particularly Sonia, Manmohan Singh and the Congress, to decide what kind of cities we will leave behind for our future generations, like a modernising Delhi with its improving traffic, air quality, power and water, or a decaying Mumbai that will soon be so choked, so eaten up by slums and with such a decline in the quality of life that, forget becoming the financial capital of Asia, it may indeed see a flight of capital to rival Kolkata’s in its darkest decades.

http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=69444

As an aside, this is the 2nd time in 3 days I have come across an article saying that Mumbai is headed the way of Kolkata during its dying decades...sign of things to come???




Take heart my dear friend Citi-Zen, for thing ARE improving. Although the pace of improvement is somewhat slow, it Is there, in our much hated political circles. For instance, there are more "good" politicians than 10 years ago :)
This article, however changes nothing. Infact, the writer has ignored one crucial point - It does more damage than good. It only makes the common man hate ALL politicians, which is counter productive.

Chief secretary ordered to be prosecuted (http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage.php?storyflag=y&leftnm=lmnu2&leftindx=2&lselect=1&chklogin=N&autono=187913)
Our Bureau / Bangalore May 04, 2005

The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday gave the green signal for the Rs 2,200 crore Bangalore-Mysore expressway.

In a landmark judgement, the high court has instructed the state government to honour the framework agreement executed between the state government and Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise Limited (NICE) signed on April 3, 1997 in its letter and spirit.

The high court has also quashed the K C Reddy Committee which was recently-constituted by the state government. The court has further instructed NICE to execute the Bangalore-Mysore infrastructure project expeditiously.

In another severe setback to the state government, the court has stated that criminal proceedings under Article 340 should be initiated against K K Mishra, chief secretary to the state government, and M Shivalingaswamy, under secretary in department of commerce and industry, for misleading the court and filing a false affidavit.

Welcoming the decision, Ashok Khenny, managing director, NICE Limited said, “Our faith in the judicial system has been vindicated. We are delighted with the decision of the division bench of the high court of Karnataka."

The company has already commenced phase I of the project and it is expected to be completed by mid-September.

The first phase involves 41 km of peripheral road connecting Tumkur Road to Bannerghatta Road and then on to Electronics City. This initial phase also envisages connecting the Bangalore-Mysore Expressway to State Highway 17, a distance of around 9 kms.

The first phase involves a total land area of 4,260 acres at a cost of around Rs 850 crore. Nearly 85 per cent of this land has been acquired and the remaining 15 per cent is in the process of being acquired. This is expected to decongest a major part of the Bannerghatta traffic flow into Electronic City.

The financial closure for the Phase I has already been achieved and this road will also see completion of 12 kms of Bangalore-Mysore Expressway upto Bidadi.

The debt component is Rs 480 crore at 11 per cent interest for this phase and financial institutions like LIC, New India have taken exposure to the project.

Commenting on the time frame for completion of the long-pending project which promises to cut the travel time from Bangalore to Mysore by half, Khenny had earlier said: "The project involves a total land area of 20,193 acres costing Rs 2,250 crore and the next 90 km of Bangalore -- Mysore expressway from Bidadi will be completed by August 2006 and the remaining will be finished by August 2007. The debt:equity ratio for the entire project is 1.6:1 and a lot of interest has been shown by various financial institutions."

Khenny had further added that they intend to pay off the debt over a 11-year period through toll collections and "a uniqueness of this toll-project is that the toll is collected at the vehicles' exit point."

"At every 10 km over the stretch, there are exit points. Each vehicle is given a smart card at the entry point and the traveller can exit where he wants and pay only for the distance travelled which will be captured in the smart card," Khenny highlighted.

http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/may42005/img/1.jpg

The project map
http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/may42005/img/map.jpg

Take heart my dear friend Citi-Zen, for thing ARE improving. Although the pace of improvement is somewhat slow, it Is there, in our much hated political circles. For instance, there are more "good" politicians than 10 years ago :)
This article, however changes nothing. Infact, the writer has ignored one crucial point - It does more damage than good. It only makes the common man hate ALL politicians, which is counter productive.

The common man's hatredness towards most, not all, politicans has crossed limits long back. Articles like these cannot do any more harm to his reputation. The onus of trusting the politican is not upto the common man but the politican himself !

Chief secretary ordered to be prosecuted (http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage.php?storyflag=y&leftnm=lmnu2&leftindx=2&lselect=1&chklogin=N&autono=187913)


The tamasha will continue?

http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=69719

Hours after the verdict, the State Cabinet decided to stand by the Chief Secretary ‘‘wholeheartedly’’ and file an appeal against the judgement in the Supreme Court.

________________

The Roadblock Story

Feb 20, 1995: Govt & VHB, SAB & Kalyani consortium sign expressway project
• March 27, 1997: Govt says NICE, set up by consortium, will implement BMIC
• April 3, 1997: Govt, NICE sign framework agreement
• Sep 21, 1998: HC upholds framework agreement
• Nov 17, 2004: Two PILs filed, one opposing and other favouring BMIC
• Jan 24, 2005: Under-Secretary M Shivalingaswamy files affidavit in HC
• April 1, 2005: Chief Secretary K K Misra files affidavit
• May 3, 2005: HC for prosecution of 2 officials, clears BMIC

The tamasha will continue?
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=69719
Hours after the verdict, the State Cabinet decided to stand by the Chief Secretary ‘‘wholeheartedly’’ and file an appeal against the judgement in the Supreme Court.


Hope this does happen ....

NICE threatens legal action against Gowda
http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/may42005/index214126200553.asp

The project map
http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/may42005/img/map.jpg

Oh, you had posted these here already. I posted the same in the roads thread.

My bad!

And yes, NICE should sue Devegowda, and I think the BIAL should sue him as well. To think this system lets men of this calibre become the PM and cabinet ministers.

UBCity close up!

Photo by Bangalore photocult

http://img218.echo.cx/img218/91/ubcityblrphotolog3wr.jpg

UBCity close up!

Photo by Bangalore photocult

http://img218.echo.cx/img218/91/ubcityblrphotolog3wr.jpg

Doesnt look like more than 14-15 floors.

They still have only the core up? Any idea how old this photo is?

The Karnataka High Court has really delivered a landmark judgement in the BMIC project case. Today's TOI (6th May) reports further about the judgement, with the HC judges referring to Supreme Court guidelines on not taking anything presented by State Govt(s) at face value and that everything should be cross verified. It is a disgraceful situation for the Karnataka ruling parties, yet they are, typically, insensitive in making noises about the Chief Sec (probably the guy is innocent and only obeying his crooked bosses, but it is shameful for an otherwise honest guy nearing retirement to sully himself thus) having their full support and going to appeal with the SC against the judgement. What a farce of a democracy this is? It is digraceful that people of the calibre of Gowda and his brood get to such powerful positions. I only hope Mr Kheny of NICE does to court on defamation charges. It is time the country got rid of cancers like Gowda, Laloo and some others.

Doesnt look like more than 14-15 floors.

They still have only the core up? Any idea how old this photo is?

I don't think those buildings are going to be very tall.

Photo posting, April 25, 2005. Dunno about date taken.

In that photo there is one more crane on the left of that TV tower. Any idea what it is?

In that photo there is one more crane on the left of that TV tower. Any idea what it is?

What TV tower? I dont see a TV tower in that photo?

i can see, it may be mobile network tower

^^^ Yeah it could be a mobile network tower, whatever tower, to the left of it , I can see a crane rising in the background. Any idea what it is?

^^^ Yeah it could be a mobile network tower, whatever tower, to the left of it , I can see a crane rising in the background. Any idea what it is?

The crane in the extreme left could just be a construction crane to move material around for the smaller buildings in the work area. From what I know only 3 buildings named after airplanes are being built.

The 2 concrete towers with the rising crane on top are the core of the buildings consisting of the elevator shaft and other utilities. The floors and surface cladding are wrapped around the core to form the final building. This method allows to build stabler, slimmer buildings with smaller surface area at the bottom since the weight is transferred to the core. This is usually used for tall skyscrapers dont know why they needed it for such a small building. Even tho it brings stability it just adds to the cost.

Intrestingly, the 3rd building does not use the concrete core and is probably using the traditional method. Maybe because its not as tall! Or maybe its too wide for a single concrete core to support!

`Devanahalli airport work has begun'

http://www.hindu.com/2005/05/07/stories/2005050709660500.htm

Enlarged Images of the airport, inside and outside. Dont know if this is the arrival or departure hall. Typically most airports will have 2 levels with approach roads leading the vehicles directly to that level. Unless they have designed seperate buildings for arrival and departure I dont see anything in these 2 pictures that would indicate multiple levels.

Are they expecting people to drag checkin/checkout luggage up/down those escalators? Just one hall bigger than the existing airport is going to cost them Rs. 1200 crore? I expect something better for an airport purporting to be a hub for the asian/Indian region.

Maybe this is just a cafeteria/viewing lounge which I doubt since they wouldnt sink money into such a fancy cafeteria which doesnt look connected to any other terminal on either side.

That begs the question did the public get to have a say in the design of the airport for their city?

http://businessimages.ch/gewerbe_shopping/Bangalore_Airport,_Indien/img0.jpg
http://businessimages.ch/public_airports/Bangalore_Airport,_Indien/img0.jpg

Devanahalli (Bangalore Rural): It began with a single jeep carrying files and plans into the site, 20 days ago. A tent followed. Then came tin sheds, mobile metal offices bringing white-collar workers to oversee labourers. And finally, the foundation for a site office...
This is the quiet way that Bangalore’s dream is coming true: A single crane lifting slabs of black stone, a handful of workers digging foundations in the earth, a villager from nearby Mailanahalli muttering: “That airport.. it is happening.’’
Unlike Hyderabad’s international airport, Bangalore is starting not only with a boundary wall but the actual airport itself. “We will excavate a huge area for the terminal building and runway, simultaneously with the boundary wall. We are just waiting for the official launch date (financial closure),’’ Bangalore International Airport Limited chief projects officer Sivaramakrishnan S. Iyer told The Times of India.
About 150 workers are chipping away at the ground at the airport area, to set up 49 temporary structures necessary to enable construction. Within six months, 3,000 workers will be living on the site, working against the deadline of 33 months from the launch date to the first flight taking off from the 4-km runway — India’s longest.
Ground excavation itself is expected to take nine months, with the loose soil in Devanahalli area being a cause for concern. The runway will require multiple layers dug deep into the ground to ensure heavy aircraft can take off.
Still, the planning has been extensive. All construction activity will be on site: the entire stone and aggregate requirement for the Rs 1,400-crore project will be sourced from a functioning illegal quarry within the airport boundary, this time with government permission.
A full-fledged construction yard is being set up, with a stone-crusher, hot-mix plant, concrete casting yard, quality control. Whatever is dug out of the ground will not be carted away, but put back: “Crusher dust will be used to stabilise loose soil, excavated mud will be put in plinth foundation,’’ Iyer said.
BWSSB is laying a pipeline for recycled water from Yelahanka sewage plant, while power will be sourced from 13 onsite diesel generators. Local and displaced villagers will supplement Larsen & Toubro’s workforce, giving a thrust to local economy.

Nice! :applause:

http://www.outlookindia.com/images/bangalore_mysore_road_20050516.jpg

http://www.outlookindia.com/images/bangalore_mysore_road_20050516.jpg

Wow...nice aerial - that one looks like a full cloverleaf interchange ! Wonder which road it is intersecting with - maybe the proposed peripheral expressway around Bangalore ?

While looking at the photo, I wonder , if u are coming from the left side of the photo and thinking of turning right to the overhead highway, how do u go about it