The Karnataka government on Monday awarded the 9,187-acre Bidadi Knowledge City, which will be positioned as New Bangalore, to the country's largest realty firm DLF Ltd.

This project is three times the size of DLF City, the realty firm's flagship integrated township in Gurgaon.

The project will entail an investment of over Rs 60,000 crore (Rs 600 billion) and will be developed in a 50:50 joint venture with the Dubai-headquartered Limitless Holdings, a sister company of Nakheel and a part of the diversified Dubai World group.

DLF and Nakheel already have a 50:50 joint venture for developing two townships of 20,000 acres each at Gurgaon and south Maharashtra at an initial investment of Rs 40,000 crore (Rs 400 billion).

DLF will be sponsoring a $1-1.5 billion fund to finance the three townships it is developing with Nakheel. The company will sell a part of its equity in the townships to the fund.

The township will be based on the 'walk-to-work' ideology. It will comprise high-quality office space, residential developments, shopping malls, multiplexes, hotels and service apartments. Of the entire area of 9,178 acres, 6,000 acres can be developed by the realty firm.

The Knowledge City is located around 30 km from Bangalore and 15 km from Mysore, between NH-209 and Bangalore-Mysore Expressway, and will look to supplement the existing urban infrastructure of Bangalore.

The project is conveniently located on the Bangalore-Mysore railway line and has an additional advantage of being on the Southern Freight Corridor.

In addition to that, New Bangalore is approximately 30 km from the existing international airport and 60 km from the upcoming Bangalore International Airport, to which to which it will be connected by an expressway.

The city will also have a dedicated Metro Rail connectivity to Bangalore. DLF, however, is also planning to develop airports and metro stations within the township.

The project was awarded to DLF, following a global tender issued by the Bangalore Metropolitan Regional Development Authority.

In all, 32 consortiums, formed by over 100 companies, had filed for the request for qualification. DLF, however, had emerged as the sole bidder.