Bengaluru: Bengaluru South MP, Ananth Kumar, who passed away early Monday, is credited with taking the initiative for the Metro Rail in the city. “Being a visionary, he was always worried about the growing traffic in the city and had long discussions with Metro man, Sridharan and leaders both at the Centre and state to make the Metro a reality,” said Chickpet MLA, Uday Garudachar, adding, “ Ananth Kumar was a leader with a vision, who was quick to learn and formulate policies keeping the future in mind. His special focus was on the city’s public transport and the Metro Rail was his brainchild. Having cordial relations with politicians from all parties both at the Centre and state, he was instrumental in getting things done for the Metro to become a reality.”
Recalling that his solutions to chronic problems were permanent in nature, he said, “His nature was to dive deep into the root cause of a problem and solve it. He was among the few leaders who realised the importance of public transport for easing traffic in the city. And at a time when projects were waiting for funds from the government, he popularised the concept of public private partnership.”
The late Union Minister was also responsible for the construction of the Kempegowda International Airport, the MLA maintained. “When talks were going on to name it , I suggested that it should be named after Janata Dal (S) supremo, H D Deve Gowda as he was the only Prime Minister from our state, but Ananth Kumar explained to me that it would be better to name it after Kempegowda, the founder of Bengaluru and it was named KIAL,” he noted.
