Bengaluru has been dubbed the Silicon Valley of India. With its booming tech industry, the city has attracted young entrepreneurs and skilled workers from across the country. However, despite its impressive growth, Bengaluru has also been slowed down by infrastructural challenges, especially traffic congestion and frequent flooding during the monsoon season.

To solve all these, Bengaluru or Karnataka needs a proper Chief Executive Officer or CEO on the lines of a CEO of a company, believe some startup founders who have their base in the city.

In the lead up to the Karnataka state assembly elections on May 10, CNBC-TV18's Ritu Singh spoke with startup founders about their wish list.

Anurag Jain, co-founder and executive director of KredX, believes that the state government needs to operate more like a corporate, with a CEO to oversee operations. Jain argued that a CEO would bring a much-needed focus to addressing the state's issues, whether it be traffic or monsoon flooding.

“There’s a very big element of focus that I see is missing in terms of the overall growth of the infrastructure and the city's growth in general. We need a CEO for Karnataka or for Bangalore," he said.

When pointed out that Karnataka already had a Chief Minister, he explained the difference of having a CEO. "When a CEO runs it, keeping all the departments in mind, I think that is where there is an overall growth of the city that we are able to see. Most of these issues, they're all solvable. I mean it's not that they cannot be solved, it's just that there needs to be a focus around each one of them.”

Abhimanyu Saxena, co-founder of Scaler and Interview Bit, highlighted the impact that traffic congestion has on productivity. Saxena argued that with less traffic, productivity could rise by 5-10 percent.

Read Here | Karnataka election 2023: JD(S) promises 4% Muslim reservation in 'Janata Pranalike' manifesto

Pankaj Sharma, co-founder and managing director of Log9 Materials, felt that Bengaluru has been the hub of talent and that is what has attracted startups to the city. He called for policies that would help take skilled workers to other cities in the state.

“We have to see what will it take for talent to sit in these other cities, what kind of health care, what kind of education system do we have over there, what kind of startups and working opportunities are there, and how these micro cities which are connected to the big city like Bangalore, integrated to Bangalore. Are you on a shuttle which is an hour away or is it takes you five hours to go back and forth.”

Sharma also suggested bullet train shuttles to connect smaller cities with larger ones, which could help reduce traffic congestion in the long run.

Also Read | Karnataka Assembly Election: Election Commission to launch parking app to encourage voting in Bengaluru

Kunal Prasad, founder and COO of Cropin, also talked about the need to distribute risk in agriculture credit all through the farming value chain and not let just farmers suffer the consequences of bad weather and poor crop output, which leaves them in the lurch with debt and pushes the governments to come up with farm loan waivers and such policies.

Pankaj Sharma of Log9 said with the right policies that would incentivise Electric Vehicle (EV) manufacturing, certification and charging infrastructure, Bengaluru could become the EV capital of India.

Abhimanyu Saxena of Scaler noted that the country's higher education policies were highly outdated and created a huge gap in the skill sector, wherein a large number of engineering graduates are churned out of colleges but they don't meet the skill demands of the industry, and on the other hand, skill development startups like Scaler do not get the right incentive to help bridge the gap.

Anurag Jain of KreditX felt the need for regulatory and policy level interventions that would give better access to the fintech sector so that they could have a smooth sailing.

For more, watch the accompanying video

(Edited by : Pradeep John)