Articles by Akshatha M

Elected representatives at the Smart City consultation programme at Town Hall in Bengaluru on Thursday. Pic: Akshatha M At a public consultation programme organised by BBMP to pool suggestions for making Bengaluru a smart city, two MLAs pitched in to promote their constituencies for the contest. While MLA of Malleshwaram constituency, C Ashwath Narayan came up with a proposal to make Malleswaram smart, Bommanahalli MLA Satish Reddy presented HSR Layout as the best place to be considered for Smart City project. In the meeting where all the MLAs and MPs of Bengaluru were supposed to be present to bat for…

Two years ago, Anirudh, father of a 9th standard student and resident of HSR Layout, decided to admit his daughter to a boarding school managed by a former athlete in Kodagu. Anirudh strongly feels that in a city like Bengaluru it’s not possible to send the budding athlete for training in Kanteerava Stadium twice a day due to traffic. So the child was shifted from Bengaluru to Kodagu with the sole intention of providing her a better athletics training. Mallika Jaswanth is a mother of two school-going kids. She is a resident of Old Airport Road and works as a…

Hoarding displayed on one of the major roads of Bengaluru. Pic: Akshath G V In the first part, we explored why BBMP is not making any money from illegal hoardings. Next part of the series tried to explore why the unauthorised hoardings are not removed. This part will examine the efforts being made to set the system right. A few attempts were made in the past to modify the existing policies related to advertisement. Strangely, every attempt so far has gone futile and reformation moves just did not take off. While implementation of the existing policy is a different aspect,…

Last week, we covered the issue of many parents in Bengaluru protesting against the private schools hiking fees, which they say has doubled in last 4-5 years. But, is there another side to the story? Citizen Matters spoke to a few school managements and teachers. What are the costs involved in running a school? "It’s not just the maintenance expenses that the school managements have to bear, but the initial establishment cost too," says Dr M Srinivasan, Founder and Chairman of GEAR International School. For instance, he says, if a person had to buy two acres of land in a prime…

June 5th is just around the corner — it’s that time of the year when you hear the word ‘environment’ often. The World Environment Day (WED) is here again. While the environment activists and citizens are ready to commemorate the environment day by planting saplings, cleaning the neighbourhood and by organising awareness programmes, let’s be aware that this year’s environment day is dedicated to the vulnerable wildlife population. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has designated WED 2016 as a fight against illegal trade in wildlife. Therefore, the 2016 WED theme is “Go Wild for Life - Zero tolerance for…

In 2012, a private unaided school attached to CBSE board was newly opened in an area in Bengaluru where most of the IT employees live. Since the school was new, its tuition fee was comparatively nominal. Its annual fee was Rs 45,000 per student. In a parent’s words, three factors were attractive:  the board affiliation of the school(CBSE, ICSE), school infrastructure/quality of education and more importantly, the affordability. For a parent, four years ago a tuition fee of Rs 45,000 seemed affordable, but little did he know that the school fee would almost double in the years to come. This…

In the first part of the series, we explained why the BBMP is not making any money from advertising. This part will explain the nexus between officials and enforcement contractors, how contractors make money in advertisement removal and the flawed enforcement contract system. Illegal advertisement and hoarding removal is a web where the nexus between advertisers, officials and enforcement contractors raises its ugly head. What’s the role of enforcement contractors in advertisement? Enforcement contractors are entrusted with the responsibility of removing illegal hoardings. A contractor with integrity, which is a rare breed to find in an area where the monthly…

In the first part of the series, we explained why the BBMP is not making any money from advertising. This part will explain the nexus between officials and enforcement contractors, how contractors make money in advertisement removal and the flawed enforcement contract system. Illegal advertisement and hoarding removal is a web where the nexus between advertisers, officials and enforcement contractors raises its ugly head. What’s the role of enforcement contractors in advertisement? Enforcement contractors are entrusted with the responsibility of removing illegal hoardings. A contractor with integrity, which is a rare breed to find in an area where the monthly…

Real-time information displayed at ITS control room in Shanthi Nagar. Pic: Akshatha M On May 25th at 3 pm, the day Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) launched its ambitious Intelligent Transport System (ITS), the screen at ITS Control Room in BMTC head office was brimming with statistics. One particular screen was displaying a graph with following figures: Buses skipped the stop - 1,470 Deviation - 83 Early arrival - 401 Schedule not departed - 414 Late departure - 852 and Over speed - 644 One click on the “over speed” graph and there pops up another window. It has information…

A huge illegal hoarding near Ejipura Signal. Pic: Shree D N This huge IPL hoarding looms above the building next to Ejipura Signal. It’s not one hoarding - they are in plenty. There are no visible license tags or numbers on the hoarding. One such hoarding in a premium location like this costs about Rs 2 lakhs per month to advertise. As we capture it on our mobile, a person sitting in the shop below stands up, alarmed. He asks, “why are you taking the photo?” He sits back satisfied upon hearing from us that the IPL imagery on the…