Bangalore , the capital of Karnataka, has a history of ever four hundred years, having been founded by Magadi Kempegowda in the year 1537 AD. Since then the city has throughout retained its importance as could be seen by the great desire of every chieftain or rules not only in the South but even the Moghul Kings of Delhi to acquire possession of this city. Bangalore , with its strategic location as well as congenial climate, fertile land and adequate rainfall has grown steadily in its area and population. Its growth accelerated with the establishment of a cantonment by the British.

In 1809, very close to the old city of Bangalore . With the establishment of the cantonment, the prospects of trade, employment and other means of livelihood increased and people started setting on the fringes of the cantonment area and various localities now known as Tasker Town, Maciever Town, Richmond Town, Frazer Town etc., started springing up. By 1890 the population of the cantonment area had crossed a lakh mark while that of the old city, which also had a prosperous period of trade and commerce, had increased to over 80,000.

The cantonment and the civil areas around it were, however, directly administered by the British Government and the city administration was with the State Government of Mysore. It was only in the middle of 1947 the Civil areas were conceded to the state and in the year 1949, the city and civil areas of Bangalore were brought under one Authority, the Corporation of the City of Bangalore , with a population of over seven lakhs.

Perhaps the most spectacular growth of the City Started after the independence of the country, with the establishment of Central Sector Industries like the Hindustan Machine Tools (H.M.T), Indian Telephone Industries (I.T.I.) etc. The re-organisation of states on linguistic basis in 1956 gave further impetus to the growth of Bangalore when it become the capital of a larger state of Mysore with the addition of vast Kannada speaking areas of the format Bombay, Hyderabad, Madras states and Kodagu. Bangalore Developed not only as a headquarters of administration and an educational centre of Karnataka but also had a tremendous growth as an Industrial Centre.

Described by its older residents as Garden City, Air-conditioned City etc., Bangalore attracted the people not only from Karnataka and surrounding areas but people from other states also on account of its salubrious climate, natural beauty and the abounding greenery. Within a decade and a half after the re-organisation of states in 1956 Bangalore became the Seventh Largest City in the Country by 1971, its population exceeding 16 lakhs. Its population growth in the decade between 1971 and 1981 has been beyond any expectation and reached nearly 3 million marks raising its place to 5 th among Indian Metropolitan Cities.

THE CITY IMPROVEMENT TRUST BOARD

About a decade before the turn of the last century the old towns of Bangalore began to outgrow. Sprawling new extensions started coming up. The first extension was Chamarajpet, laid out in 1892. This was followed by extensions of Malleswaram, Basavanagudi, Visveswarapuram, Seshadripuram, Shankarpuram etc., during the First two decades of the current century. In the process, the city absorbed about 26 villages. The two great Dewans of the Mysore State , Sir. M. Visveswaraya and Sir. M. Mirza Ismail evinced keen interest in the city and bestowed their attention in developing Bangalore as ‘City Beautiful' during the Second and Third decades of the present century.

The rapid growth attracted the attention of the Government and efforts were set afoot was for a systematic development of Bangalore so as to retain the Fair name of “Garden City”. A City Improvement Trust Board was constituted by the Government in 1945. The establishment of the Bangalore City Muncipal Corporation by clubbing the two Minicipalities, the City Municipality and the Civil and Military Station Municipality in the year 1949, with 30 Sq. miles of area, was also beneficial for the systematic growth of the City. While the corporation concentrated its efforts on maintaining the city clean and beautiful, the City Improvement Trust Board paid attention to develop new extensions to meet the demands for house-sites.

The now well-known extensions of Bangalore , the Jayanagar, Rajajinagar, Indira Nagar, Palace Upper Orchard, Koramangala were developed by the City Improvement Trust Board. The C.I.T.B. developed number of residential extension schemes in different parts of the City on a planned basis and has met a considerable part of the demand for developed house sites. Besides developing residential sites, the C.I.T.B. developed and industrial suburb and also took up road widening schemes - an important road being the B.V.K. Iyengar Road .

During the existence of nearly 30 years of the City Improvement Trust Board of Bangalore, it distributed 68,300 sites for residential, commercial, industrial and institutional purposes in the City. It is worthwhile noting that nearly 40% of these were allotted to the economically weaker sections of the Society.

The Trust Board in fact took a major decision in keeping with the new awakening in the country about creating an atmosphere of Social justice and equality to grant 50% concession in the price to the economically weaker sections of the people.