Bengaluru: Urban planners suggest that revamp of footpaths to cost Rs 84.02 crore

Sensing Local, an advocacy based research platform launched an initiative titled “Walkable Bengaluru”. The major objective of the initiative was to conduct an audit about the status of footpaths across the city. The project commenced in December 2022. The researchers had started from RT Nagar and had plans of covering 24 wards at that point of time. Between March and May 19 wards were covered that encompass a total distance of 315 kilometres.
The audits are carried out with the help of local volunteers who input data into an app made for this purpose. They gauge the locality to identify where the concentration of pedestrians is highest, carry out talks with the local community to understand the commuting patterns so that they can prioritise which footpaths should be first revamped. The plan is to then get an estimate of the budget that would be needed to be allocated for this task. The project has expanded in scale and scope over the past few months.
Sensing Local has estimated that Rs 84.02 crore would be needed for this task with infrastructure repairs taking up a major portion of the budget (Rs 63.11 core). Rs 15 crore budget would be dedicated to building infrastructure which would make the roads easier to navigate for those with physical disabilities.