Articles by Ashwin Mahesh

Each year, when the state Budget is presented, the citizens of Namma Bengaluru hope to see things included in it which will alleviate the many challenges we face. And over time, dashed hopes have led to lower expectations. But this year, I'm happy to see something new - for the first time we have promised ourselves a comprehensive approach to problems rather than piece-meal solutions through projects. The decongestion of traffic in the city will require a broad emphasis on all modes, with meaningful investments in sustainable mobility and public transport. The bus fleet needs to be doubled, we'll need…

For years together, people talked about the 'demographic dividend'. Thanks to high fertility ratios in the past, a large number of young people would be entering the workforce, and we as yet don't have a very large aged population, so the ratio of workers to non-workers would be favourable. It would boost economic activity and taxes, and allow us to make investments in many public goods and services. This was not a bad picture to paint. But it had one important assumption - namely, that the young people entering the workforce would be skilled and productive. But we totally missed…

Around the city, it's easy to see that a number of localities are struggling to manage their waste. Heaps of trash lie around on the sides of roads, and are cleared only occasionally. The BBMP has tried various things to stop this - from warning signs to pleas to decorating a few places hoping that people will be reluctant to dirty them. None of this has worked. Now comes a different explanation. Some communities want to bring back the old bins. Until about a decade ago, the municipality used to have bins at street corners and people would dump their…

I was at the launch of the Cycle to Work campaign along with the Mayor and the Bicycle Mayor last week. It was very nice to see many cyclists come together, hopeful of renewed efforts to make their commutes and other rides easier and safer. The program is designed to enroll corporates in supporting their employees who cycle to work, and a template for that is being put together. Looking back at lake revival efforts over the last decade, I feel the push for cycling can also work, if I we adopt the key learnings. I offered a few thoughts…

For several years now, I've had one theme around which I felt we could push for change - "rather than try to solve problems, we should focus on increasing the number of problem solving people". In different spheres, that is now happening in the city, and that gives me hope. A few examples ... The BCLIP initiative of B.PAC trains 100 people a year in understanding local governance, so that they can be better prepared to contest BBMP elections. In a 5-year term that is 500 graduates, with more than half of them also doing projects in their wards after…

The easiest way to work with government is to solve some of their problems. We often think that the government should solve our problems, but in practice, they have many of their own!! And unless those are sorted first, there's no chance of anything we want being tackled well. There are some standard problems in government that citizens can help solve. Once we understand this, it's only a matter of finding things to get started with. After that, it's quite easy to build a good working relationship with officials to pursue solutions to public problems. Broadly, there are two categories…

If there's a leak in the water line in your building, you'll call the plumber. You won't call the carpenter and hope that by a combination of luck, brute force, learning-on-the-job, prayer, etc. he'll somehow get the job done. But when it comes to governance, we don't use this basic filter. We put the wrong people in charge of problem solving, and endlessly debate why they should be nonetheless able to solve them. They can't. The sooner we admit it the better. Structure matters. The internal capacity of organisations makes a difference. Being alert to larger trends and learning from…

When a Budget is presented in July, and when a significant new commitment of expenditure is made for a single purpose (as in the case of agricultural loan waivers this year), there is not much room for other things. So we must see the loan waiver itself as the significant announcement, and not ask what else is significant this year. That said, there is one thing in the Budget which I liked. The focus on the industrial development of a few districts, based on key strengths in those districts, is a potentially good idea. If it is done right, it…

Bangalore's struggles are not due to lack of expertise or new ideas. We've tried those, with only limited success. What is needed instead is faith in the right institutions and processes, and realising that until the rest of Karnataka develops, it will be next to impossible to restore and maintain the capital alone at high levels of livability. It is the prerogative of every new government to appoint its advisors, but in doing so, it must take care that the statutory bodies which have the mandate to guide development are not bypassed or diluted. Indeed, if those same advisors were…

With rising concerns about air quality in the city, a number of private citizens have begun measuring pollutant levels in the atmosphere, and are publishing them. The Karnataka Pollution Control Board (KSPCB), which is tasked with monitoring air quality and protecting the public from the health risks of poor air, disputes these measurements, arguing that these are taken by un-certified sensors. That's true, but it's also not the end of the matter. The problem is quite simple - secrecy is the weakness of pollution control efforts in the country. The government has taken the view that it will collect its…