Bengaluru is infamous for its traffic and hours-long traffic jams. The IT city was among the two Indian cities that were named among the world's ten worst traffic-hit cities in 2024. The same year, it was also named the third most congested city in the world. In the face of this, Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath brought together two of Bengaluru's top police officers and asked them if there was any solution to this infamous problem. In the latest episode of his podcast WTF, the billionaire spoke with Commissioner of Police B Dayananda and Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) MN Anucheth.
"As someone from Bangalore, I've been a bit bothered by how much flak we get, especially about traffic. So I set out to see if the criticism is fair, and what's actually being done about it," Mr Kamath wrote in the description of the YouTube video. "I am from Bangalore. I hate all the hate that is coming for Bangalore," he told the two top cops.
Sitting across a table with police commissioners, Mr Kamath asked, "I'm from Bangalore, as Bangalorean as anybody can be. Wherever I go and tell good things about Bangalore, people tell me, 'traffic, traffic, traffic. What is the problem? What is the solution? Is there a solution?"
To this, Mr Anucheth explained how the tech boom transformed Bengaluru. "The thing with Bengaluru has been that post-2000, after the IT boom, there has been a significant explosive growth and the infrastructure has not commensurately grown with the growth of vehicles or the human population," he said.
"Bangalore has 1.23 crore registered vehicles for a population of 1.5 crore; that's 872 vehicles per 1,000 people, more than Mumbai or Delhi!" he added. "Hyderabad is comparable. It's at about 750. But Bangalore is very high. So, we have 1.5 crore population with 1.23 crore vehicle population. So, with the kind of explosive growth... So the compounded annual growth rate of vehicles is 8 percent, right? We doubled between 2013 and 2023. It was 56 lakh, it became 1.12 crore. So, if you see that kind of growth rate, infrastructure will never be enough," Mr Anucheth explained.
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The police commissioner also addressed the lack of public transport facilities in Bengaluru. "The only public transport facilities before the metro came in was the BMTC buses. Unlike other cities like Kolkata, you had the trams. In Delhi, you had the metro," explained Mr Anucheth.
At this point, Mr Kamath interjected to talk about his personal experience, revealing that Namma Metro construction work near his house has been ongoing for 10 years. "Near my house on Bannerghatta Road, metro construction started, I don't know, ten years ago. It's still going on," he said.
The billionaire also revealed that in October last year, he bought a house in Bengaluru, ditching his long-held philosophy of renting instead of buying.
