ISKCON

KRISHNA LILA PARK

Vaikunta Hill, Kanakapura Road Bangalore

Project conceived by
 Questions & Answers on Krishna Lila Park, a project conceived by ISKCON-Bangalore
Sl.No. Questions Answers

1. What is this project about? This is a grand-scale project to present and promote the culture and heritage
of India in a compelling manner using state-of-the-art technology in a family
edutainment format.

This will become yet another important tourism destination in Bangalore

city. In that sense, this is a tourism project of immense significance in
Bangalore, and has all the chrracteristics and societal benefits as any other
tourism project.

Recognizing the immense tourism potential in this project, the Government

of Karnataka has cleared this as a tourism project.

2. Being a temple why are you involved
in tourism projects?
In India, today, it is a well known fact that Cultural Tourism and Religious
Tourism are the most important tourism sectors. And hence there is a
convergence of our interests to popularize culture and heritage of India and
the government's interest in developing tourism projects which invigorates
local economy and creates direct and indirect employment. This project is
estimated to create 4000 direct and indirect jobs.

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Sl.No. Questions
3. Why is ISKCON involved in real estate
activities?
4. But as charitable and religious
institution, why are you involved in
real estate?
5. Being devotees, how do you take up
such residential development and
commercial development?
Answers
ISKCON has conceived a grand Theme Park project costing about Rs.350
crores. This project involves an iconic and monumental building that is 360
feet high and houses some of the theme park attractions. ISKCON has
planned residential development for it’s donors and devotees and the
surplusses will be used for setting up of the Theme Park.
For a chritable or religious trust to be involved in revenue generation by
exploiting its land is not an unusual situation. There are hundreds of examples
in Bangalore city.
For instance, the well known Unity Building, next to Bangalore City
Corporation office, belongs to the Church of South India, and the property
was developed into a commercial building, from which the church continues
to enjoy rental income to be used for church purposes.
The Rashtrottana Building on Nrupatunga Road belongs to a charitable trust,
Rashtrottana Parishad. The trust gets regular rent from Kamat
Refreshments and a host of other government offices.
We are not personally doing it ourselves. We have contracted the work to a
builder, who is also a devotee of the temple. He owns a design and build
company. And he does all the design, development and construction work
for the temple practically at cost. It is a great blessing to have such a
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Sl.No. Questions Answers
committed and competent builder with us. His company will also build the
Krishna Lila Park buildings.

6. Is it true that you are building
residential apartments in the land
allotted by the government to set up
the theme park?
The land allotted by the government is 28 acres and that will used entirely for
setting up the Krishna Lila Park. We have separately purchased additional
35 acres of land where we will build residential apartments.
Land (rocky hillock)
allotted by Government of Karnataka
for Theme Park (28 acres)

Additional Land purchased by

trust (35 acres)

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Sl.No. Questions
7. Has the government allowed you to
take up such real estate projects?
8. What milestones have been crossed
in the realization of this dream
project?
Answers
Yes. We have presented this project and the financing strategy to the
project to the Government of Karnataka in 2005. The State High Level
Committee chaired by the Chief Minister of Karnataka has given a
clearance for this project as one of the state tourism projects. The
government has also offered certain tax concessions under the tourism
policy.
Secondly, we are not breaking any law of the land by taking up such a
project. As we mentioned earlier, a charitable and religious trust developing
the trust property to earn an income which will be entirely used for the trust
objectives is neither unlawful nor new.
Thirdly, in our case, we are doing this to preserve and promote the great
culture and heritage of India. We want to impress on the younger
generation about the glorious pastimes of our legendary heroes like Krishna
and Hanuman. Otherwise, today, our children’s minds are filled with Su-
perman, Spiderman and such other characters and legends coming from
the West. We want to implant the great characters of our Indian epics and
the deep morality they represent, in the minds of our children. This is an
unprecedented and historical project being attempted for the first time in
our country.
We got the clearance from High Level Clearance Committee (HLCC) in
30.12.2004.
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Sl.No. Questions Answers

Next we had to consolidate the land needed for the project, which took a
certain duration of time.

To raise funds for the project, we approached the financial institutions. But
they wanted the land allotted to us by the government on a lease basis to be
converted to free hold. We applied to the government for this change from
lease to free hold and the matter went up to the cabinet to approve of this.
Finally on 10.11.2006 the cabinet cleared this matter.

Meanwhile, we have got the environmental clearance for the project from
the Government of India.

We also obtained the airport clearance for the height of the building.

We have also completed a great deal of design work of the attractions.

Nearly 4000 art works, concept drawings, colour keys, detailed design
drawings are ready.

We have also identified several technology partners to provide engineering

solutions for creating the attractions in the park, both in India and
overseas.

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