Articles by Vijay Kundaji

BMTC is the lifeline of Bengaluru. Its buses deliver 5 million (50 lakh) passenger trips everyday. This figure of passengers carried is close to half the population of the city. Without BMTC, we would all be dead, in a manner of speaking, as the city's already beyond-clogged roads would need to carry this huge number of people in vastly more motor vehicles. In comparison Namma Metro does not yet carry even one-tenth that number of people a day along its currently functional 2 lines. And reports are that their service is already 'at capacity' until much-needed coaches are added and…

The Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL), a public sector major, via its wholly owned subsidiary, GAIL Gas, has secured BBMP permission to lay liquified natural gas (LNG) 'last mile' pipelines for retail consumers in some parts of Bengaluru including HSR Layout (other areas being Jalahalli, etc).   The HSR pipeline network is one of the tail ends of the 1386 kilometer long Dabhol-Bangalore LNG pipeline, work on which was inaugurated by the former prime minister Manmohan Singh in December 2013 and was commissioned in February 2015. Digging trenches for the first part of the work has commenced in the…

For years the large Civic Amenity (CA) site next to the HSR Layout BDA Complex in Sector 7 has perhaps been jockeyed for by politicians and other 'privileged' and 'connected' citizens of Bengaluru. Given the dizzying number of zeroes involved in a property so 'prime' and so large, the CA site although ideal for the construction of a large public transport terminus (BMTC and other) in the area, will see no such outcome. Information we have is that the prime property has been handed away in three parts. One is to a trust created by a powerful politician, ostensibly to…