The Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) is a governmental organisation (referred to within India as a parastatal entity) and the principal area planning authority for the peripheral zones of the Bengaluru Metropolitan Area (BMA) — those lying outside the jurisdiction of Greater Bengaluru (Bengaluru City) — covering in accordance with the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act. Its mandate flows from the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act, 1961 (KTCPA), under which it is required to prepare a Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) for the peripheral BMA, govern land use, develop residential and civic infrastructure, and provide housing for economically weaker sections. Since its inception, the BDA has allotted over 76,000 residential sites and provided more than 800 civic amenity plots to public utilities and neighbourhood organisations.

Since September 2025, the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) — established under the Greater Bengaluru Governance Act, 2024 (notified 15 May 2025) — has assumed planning responsibilities for the of Bengaluru City, reducing the BDA's effective jurisdiction to the outer peripheral areas of the metropolitan region.

The BDA has prepared four Comprehensive Development Plans for Bengaluru since 1976, most recently a draft Revised Master Plan 2031 that was withdrawn in 2020 and is being restarted. Its major infrastructure achievements include the Outer Ring Road and multiple flyovers; it has also been criticised for corruption, persistent failure to deliver basic services in its residential layouts, and inadequate accountability to elected representatives.

Background

Pre-BDA planning: the City Improvement Trust Board

Urban planning in Bangalore before 1976 was administered primarily through the City Improvement Trust Board (CITB), established in 1945 under The City of Bangalore Improvement Act, 1945 enacted by the then Government of Mysore. The CITB was an unelected body comprising experts and technocrats, constituted under Section 3 of the Act to draw improvement schemes and undertake works for the improvement of the city. Its mandate was to reduce overcrowding in areas identified for improvement and to build residential extensions with modern infrastructure including roads, water supply, and drainage.

Between 1945 and 1973, the CITB developed over 65 residential extensions distributed across more than 60,000 sites and undertook 160 improvement schemes. Among the significant layouts it developed were Sadashivanagar, Jayamahal, and the Palace Upper and Lower Orchards (Vyalikaval), which were laid out on land procured from the Mysore royal family's palace estates. The legacy of the CITB's top-down urban planning approach — vesting authority in appointed technocrats rather than elected representatives — directly shaped the governance structure of the BDA, which succeeded it.

Establishment

The BDA was established on 6 January 1976 under the Bangalore Development Authority Act, 1976, superseding the CITB. The BDA Act, 1976 was enacted in pursuance of a resolution passed at a 1971 conference of Ministers for Housing and Urban Development held at Delhi, which agreed that a single, unified authority should be set up for the development of metropolitan cities. The new Authority combined in itself the planning functions of the City Planning Authority and the developmental functions of the erstwhile CITB. The first Chairman of the BDA was Shri B.T. Somanna.

The BDA Act vests the Authority with powers to prepare and implement development schemes including site-and-services projects, road networks, and civic amenities, while imposing obligations on landowners for contributions toward such developments through the levy of betterment tax. Under Section 21 of the Act, the BDA is entitled to levy betterment tax on the owners of land within a development scheme area where the market value of that land has increased, or will increase, as a consequence of the execution of the scheme.

Governance structure

Of the BDA's 23 members, only 2 are elected corporators; the remainder are directly appointed by the state government. This has long created accountability tensions, particularly after the Constitution (74th Amendment) Act, 1992 mandated the devolution of planning powers to elected local bodies. Despite being the principal planning authority for its jurisdiction, it has been estimated that up to 90 percent of new residential layouts on the Bengaluru periphery lack formal BDA approval, and over time these tend to be regularised by successive state governments — exhibiting all of the problems of ad hoc development, including irregular road layouts, boundary encroachments, and absent essential services.

The BDA operates under the oversight of the Government of Karnataka through the Department of Urban Development, which holds authority over key appointments, policy directives, and operational approvals. Since the 1981 amendment to the BDA Act, a Commissioner of the Authority — a senior officer of the rank of Secretary to Government — has been appointed to ensure more effective day-to-day administration, leaving the Chairman to guide policy proceedings of the Authority.

Accountability concerns and reforms

In 1995, a prominent scandal involved the illegal sale of around 200 BDA sites by corrupt officials. A 1993 Public Affairs Center report card on BDA performance documented widespread citizen dissatisfaction, and a 1997 report by the Committee on Urban Management in Bangalore (CUMB) concluded the organisation had outlived its mandate and should be disbanded.

A 1999 World Bank policy paper labelled the BDA one of the most corrupt and inefficient civic institutions in the city, reporting that 65 percent of Bengalureans were dissatisfied with it and just 1 percent satisfied — the worst score for any civic agency in Bengaluru — with the BDA also receiving the highest share of bribes (33 percent) exchanged for expediting service outcomes. Following these findings, the BDA undertook operational and asset management reforms that increased residential layout development in subsequent years.

The Kasturirangan Report, 2008

The 2008 Expert Committee Report on Governance in the Bangalore Metropolitan Region reaffirmed that the BDA had, as both developer and regulator, neglected its regulatory role, but acknowledged its credibility in delivering major infrastructure projects, including the Outer Ring Road. The report recommended that land regulation responsibilities be transferred to the BBMP, with the BDA focusing on infrastructure development.

2025 Governance Restructuring

The Greater Bengaluru Governance Act, 2024, notified on 15 May 2025, established the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) as the apex metropolitan governance body. The BBMP continued to function in a transitional capacity until it was formally dissolved on 2 September 2025, when the five new city corporations and the GBA became fully operational.

Under the restructuring, planning powers for the of Bengaluru City transferred to the GBA, now coordinating five new municipal corporations (North, South, East, West and Central Bengaluru) and responsible for the city's Comprehensive Development Plan and major infrastructure agencies including BWSSB, BMTC and Namma Metro. The BDA's jurisdiction was reduced from to the peripheral , with its revised mandate focused on large-scale infrastructure execution — arterial and sub-arterial roads and stormwater drainage — rather than city-wide master planning.

Tushar Girinath, Additional Chief Secretary of the Urban Development Department (UDD), confirmed a pending amendment to the KTCP Act to formally vest the GBA with master plan powers. The Observer Research Foundation, in a May 2025 analysis, observed that the Act risks centralising power and weakening elected local bodies, raising questions about its alignment with the 74th Constitutional Amendment's decentralisation mandate. { "type": "FeatureCollection", "features": [

"type": "Feature", "properties": { "title": "Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) jurisdiction", "description": "BDA peripheral planning area, ~499 km\u00b2", "fill": "#f59e0b", "fill-opacity": 0.4, "stroke": "#b45309", "stroke-width": 2 }, "geometry": { "type": "Polygon", "coordinates": [ [ [ 77.52749, 12.80916 ], [ 77.52718, 12.80585 ], [ 77.52401, 12.80501 ], [ 77.52235, 12.80682 ], [ 77.51965, 12.80738 ], [ 77.5191, 12.80373 ], [ 77.51423, 12.80199 ], [ 77.50512, 12.8037 ], [ 77.50213, 12.80323 ], [ 77.49863, 12.81308 ], [ 77.49494, 12.81968 ], [ 77.49305, 12.82664 ], [ 77.49427, 12.82757 ], [ 77.49444, 12.83208 ], [ 77.49724, 12.83637 ], [ 77.49348, 12.83851 ], [ 77.4885, 12.83442 ], [ 77.48381, 12.83516 ], [ 77.48072, 12.83767 ], [ 77.47405, 12.84624 ], [ 77.46607, 12.842 ], [ 77.46374, 12.84292 ], [ 77.46331, 12.84158 ], [ 77.46091, 12.84239 ], [ 77.46027, 12.84093 ], [ 77.45613, 12.84318 ], [ 77.45626, 12.84269 ], [ 77.45359, 12.84229 ], [ 77.45213, 12.84278 ], [ 77.4499, 12.84612 ], [ 77.44739, 12.8463 ], [ 77.44773, 12.8506 ], [ 77.44097, 12.85168 ], [ 77.43978, 12.85373 ], [ 77.44366, 12.85836 ], [ 77.44327, 12.86034 ], [ 77.44746, 12.85942 ], [ 77.44792, 12.85999 ], [ 77.44615, 12.864 ], [ 77.44518, 12.8648 ], [ 77.44331, 12.8646 ], [ 77.44269, 12.86746 ], [ 77.43978, 12.8705 ], [ 77.43846, 12.8705 ], [ 77.43856, 12.87155 ], [ 77.44007, 12.87276 ], [ 77.43559, 12.87567 ], [ 77.43262, 12.87075 ], [ 77.43164, 12.86421 ], [ 77.42213, 12.87711 ], [ 77.42136, 12.87694 ], [ 77.42013, 12.88714 ], [ 77.42711, 12.88673 ], [ 77.42649, 12.89075 ], [ 77.42963, 12.89658 ], [ 77.43162, 12.91063 ], [ 77.43825, 12.90903 ], [ 77.43757, 12.91076 ], [ 77.43952, 12.91078 ], [ 77.4407, 12.91262 ], [ 77.44168, 12.91885 ], [ 77.44165, 12.92279 ], [ 77.43546, 12.92421 ], [ 77.42987, 12.92829 ], [ 77.43212, 12.93923 ], [ 77.42674, 12.94061 ], [ 77.4267, 12.94209 ], [ 77.42773, 12.94223 ], [ 77.42804, 12.94317 ], [ 77.42701, 12.94408 ], [ 77.42725, 12.94777 ], [ 77.42995, 12.95485 ], [ 77.42792, 12.95889 ], [ 77.42804, 12.96414 ], [ 77.42944, 12.9679 ], [ 77.42911, 12.97544 ], [ 77.42748, 12.98625 ], [ 77.42647, 12.98784 ], [ 77.42267, 12.99023 ], [ 77.42565, 13.00093 ], [ 77.4288, 13.00729 ], [ 77.43005, 13.01185 ], [ 77.43042, 13.01707 ], [ 77.4279, 13.01815 ], [ 77.42824, 13.02006 ], [ 77.43077, 13.02598 ], [ 77.4327, 13.02839 ], [ 77.43528, 13.0382 ], [ 77.4355, 13.04369 ], [ 77.4368, 13.04745 ], [ 77.43427, 13.05017 ], [ 77.43659, 13.05492 ], [ 77.43797, 13.05585 ], [ 77.43846, 13.0588 ], [ 77.44146, 13.06274 ], [ 77.43884, 13.06738 ], [ 77.43984, 13.0723 ], [ 77.44206, 13.07232 ], [ 77.45118, 13.06953 ], [ 77.45395, 13.07782 ], [ 77.45418, 13.08178 ], [ 77.453, 13.08428 ], [ 77.45613, 13.09094 ], [ 77.45784, 13.10457 ], [ 77.46394, 13.10517 ], [ 77.46506, 13.10382 ], [ 77.46742, 13.10516 ], [ 77.4692, 13.10751 ], [ 77.47497, 13.1122 ], [ 77.47687, 13.1123 ], [ 77.47924, 13.11023 ], [ 77.48712, 13.10967 ], [ 77.4893, 13.11618 ], [ 77.49152, 13.11592 ], [ 77.49222, 13.11743 ], [ 77.49464, 13.1183 ], [ 77.49731, 13.13208 ], [ 77.51033, 13.13276 ], [ 77.51136, 13.13077 ], [ 77.518, 13.13141 ], [ 77.51829, 13.13337 ], [ 77.5204, 13.13602 ], [ 77.5241, 13.14415 ], [ 77.5392, 13.14448 ], [ 77.5458, 13.15242 ], [ 77.54664, 13.15406 ], [ 77.54546, 13.15451 ], [ 77.54597, 13.15644 ], [ 77.54525, 13.15737 ], [ 77.54789, 13.15933 ], [ 77.55053, 13.16635 ], [ 77.55401, 13.17214 ], [ 77.55924, 13.17151 ],