Govt Serious About Making B'luru a Global City, Push to Become EV-Capital of India: Priyank Kharge He also quoted data from the Centre of Science and Environment, according to which an unskilled worker loses anywhere between INR 7200-19,600 each year because of traffic, a skilled worker could lose up to INR 23,800, and a highly skilled worker could go beyond INR 30,000, pointing to the need for immediate decongestion in Bengaluru.
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Governance cannot just be about passing policies, but has to about people, policy, and participation, said, Priyank Kharge, Minister of IT &BT, Govt of Karnataka, while speaking about solving mobility issues at the Mobility Symposium 2025, adding that the government is extremely serious about making Bengaluru a global city, while insisting that the city and its stakeholders behave like one.
"That means having our ears open, our eyes open, and listening to what people have to say. Whatever comes out of this symposium will be discussed within the local bodies and the government. If there are solutions we can work on together, we are ready to look at them. When we have our skin in the game and participate with citizens and the ecosystem, that's when governance becomes real and impactful. Hashtags and outrage alone won't fix cities, planning, finance, and participative policymaking will," said Kharge.
He also quoted data from the Centre of Science and Environment, according to which an unskilled worker loses anywhere between INR 7200-19,600 each year because of traffic, a skilled worker could lose up to INR 23,800, and a highly skilled worker could go beyond INR 30,000, pointing to the need for immediate decongestion in Bengaluru.
Indian startups working in the mobility sector, however, witnessed a positive funding period despite the funding slowdown. The first half of 2025 witnessed 5 funding rounds exceeding USD 100 million, which included Erisha E Mobility's USD 1 billion Series D round.
The transportation sector was also one of the leading sectors in terms of funding performance in the first half of 2025, with the transportation and logistics-tech sector witnessing a strong recovery, raising USD 1.6 billion, a 104 per cent jump from USD 799.3 million in the second half of 2024 and a 54 per cent rise from the first half of 2024's USD 1.1 billion, according to data from Tracxn.
On improving public transportation, Kharge noted that less than 50 per cent of people in Bengaluru use public transport today
"We want to increase that to 70 per cent by 2027 or 2028, seven out of every ten rides should be on public transport. We have 45 lakh daily BMTC commuters and are sanctioning 4,500 new electric buses, 95 kilometers of new metro lines, and another 160 kilometers of suburban rail with 69 stations. We have 5,700 charging stations and 9 per cr of all vehicles sold in Bengaluru are already electric. We are doing everything we can to make Bengaluru the EV capital of India," said Kharge.
According to Kharge, in 2024, the city alone accounted for 47 per cent of total office space sold to Global Capability Centers (GCCs), out of 77.92 million square feet across India's top 7 cities
"We absorb the highest number of migrants in India because we are creating jobs here. I added 7 lakh vehicles to my city last year alone. In August itself, 58,913 new vehicles were registered," said Kharge.
Tejasvi Surya, Member of Parliament, however, said that for a very long time in the country, policymakers and the policymakers and political discourse in general have not truly understood the value, the economic and growth value of urbanization.
According to Surya, while there has been fast-paced economic growth, there has not been a corresponding rise in the share of urbanization. "The result is the state our cities are in today."
"It may surprise many, but India does not have national standards for how our urban roads should be built. We have exacting standards for national highways, but none for city roads. I want to propose a National Urban Roads Mission, like the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana did for rural India, that will set national standards, overhaul tendering processes, and move from L1 bidding to performance-based systems that ensure value for public money," added Surya.
