Infrastructure

Perambur railway station is one of the important stations in the Chennai Suburban Railway network. In terms of commuter traffic, it is the fifth largest station in Chennai, after Chennai Central, Egmore, Tambaram and Mambalam. All of the suburban trains passing through this station, except one or two, halt here, and many of the long-distance trains also have a stoppage at this station. Perambur Railway Station is also the second oldest in the city after Royapuram railway station. The station was originally built in the 1860s to cater to employees at Southern Railway's locomotive, carriage, wagon and coach-building workshops.  The…

In a small shop in Bhendi bazaar, owner Devendra Jain shows an elderly customer two polka-dotted ridas, the colourful skirt-scarf combo worn by Bohra women, trying to match to a picture on his phone. After decades of running the business that started with door-to-door sales, his loyal customers are now experiencing a more convenient shopping experience. In the last few years, the shop has gone from a dingy spot under a staircase in a chawl, to a spanking new space on the second floor of the newly redeveloped Al Sa’adah Towers. 13 buildings were demolished to make way for the…

In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, we saw that Bengaluru’s drains are poorly designed and that the government doesn’t even have a full database of the drainage network even as many drains have gone missing. In this article, we explore why these stormwater drain works do not yield results. When a government department entrusts any work to a contractor, it should follow clear procedures to verify the completed works and make payments. But this seems anathema to BBMP's Stormwater Drain (SWD) Department. A 2021 audit report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), an independent watchdog body,…

In Part 1 of this series, we saw that a CAG report of 2021 revealed Bengaluru does not have a complete map or database of its stormwater drain network. Drains are mapped in two master plans - the Revised Master Plan (RMP 2015) by the BDA (Bangalore Development Authority), and the BBMP’s master plan of drains. But the former does not indicate the type of drain (primary/secondary/tertiary), and the latter does not include tertiary/roadside drains at all. Neither plan has marked the buffer zones around drains; and many drains are missing in either document or both. Drains mapped in BBMP's…

It takes very little to flood a road or home in Bengaluru. In recent weeks, rains have caused severe flooding in many parts of the city, especially in North Bengaluru. A report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on the city’s stormwater drain (SWD) system, released this September, shows why this shouldn’t be a surprise at all.  In any city, stormwater drains are critical for: Preventing flood and its related effectMaintaining clean lakes/water bodiesGroundwater recharge But Bengaluru’s drainage system has been badly mismanaged by the city corporation BBMP’s Stormwater Drain (SWD) department, finds the audit report. The report covered…

With torrential rains lashing Chennai since early November, which left several areas in the city such as T Nagar, Velachery and parts of North Chennai like Pulianthope inundated, the recurring and infamous phenomenon of unregulated and illegal construction in the city is back under the spotlight. Several reports and experts have pointed out yet again that along with faulty drains and blocked canals, rampant encroachments and illegal construction, especially along the banks of the Adyar and Cooum rivers and the Ennore-Kosasthalaiyar basin, have prevented water seepage, thus causing severe inundation. According to a recent report in The New Indian Express,…

This year, the incessant rains has brought the joy of seeing all dams across the state full. Yet it has also been a matter of concern as several low-rise multi dwelling buildings in Bengaluru have collapsed, with residents having had a narrow escape. These recent events of families losing their homes along with their entire life’s hard-earned savings from furniture to food grains has shocked us all. Yet, the question remains. Why do houses collapse this way? While the rain has played its part, there is also another aspect: many buildings do not adhere to the construction standards and regulations.…

55% of Mumbai’s population lives in slums, and is routinely excluded from urban planning. Dr Lalitha Kamath, an urban planning expert, has found that it is precisely by design that this structure is created and maintained. The State does not treat all residents of the city equally, and this is just another form of violence. Its instruments are the seemingly technical project and development plans. Lalitha is an associate professor at the Centre for Urban Policy and Governance, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. Her work includes Participolis: Consent and Contention in Neoliberal Urban Governance (2013) and the forthcoming…

Bengaluru is increasingly becoming a city with more roads and flyovers, and with less spaces for public interaction or informal encounters. As in other Indian cities, here too, administrators imagine a city that meets global standards of urban form and infrastructure. Whereas, at the neighbourhood level, people continue to nurture and sustain spaces like ashwath kattes (peepul tree shrines), informally generating community spaces. And these spaces - which assimilate the rural within the urban - survive even as government agencies have been rampantly usurping public spaces for various projects. There are two competing processes in city-making – one, from above,…

It was around 5 am on November 7th, Sunday, when VS Jayaraman was woken up by his brother, who stayed in the ground floor of their apartment. There was considerable commotion at their apartment complex during the early hours of that day. Water had entered all the flats in the ground floor of the building, which is located on Motilal street in T Nagar, as a result of the heavy rains and the subsequent flooding in Chennai through the night of November 6th and the early hours of November 7th. “We immediately notified the Corporation officials as well as the…