bangalore potholes

A couple of months ago, a mother and child met with a serious accident on the Varthur-Gunjur road. Passersby rushed them to a nearby hospital after they suffered injuries. Earlier this month, the condition of a Whitefield road became so poor that a school had to come forward to fix the road. A teacher from the school had met with an accident on the pothole-ridden road; one can only imagine how unsafe the school children would have been. We know of many such instances where commuters got injured or even lost their lives due to the poor condition of roads in Bengaluru. In…

It is not possible to make the city pothole-free in 10 days. So it is unclear what the government hopes for, by ordering BBMP to do this. It may as well order the rains to stop! Keeping a city pothole-free is not difficult. But that requires doing a few things right to BEGIN with. The responses after things go wrong won't help. The only thing we can hope for in 10 days is to see whether the government and the BBMP begin to do things differently in the way construction and maintenance contracts are set up for roads and footpaths.…

It is worrisome that Bangalore is as famous for its potholed roads as it is for its IT industry. According to a conservative government estimate, at this time, Bengaluru is home to about 4000 potholes with varying degrees of hazard associated with them. Indeed, last September, one such pothole claimed the life of a young woman when she suffered head injuries due to a fall. While calculating the cost of a life is nearly impossible, there are other costs associated with potholes that can be estimated. First, there is the cost of slow-moving traffic that leads to loss of productive…

Anything in plenty loses its value. Anything–even human life! That’s why when we read of treacherous genocide of thousands of innocent people somewhere away from our vicinity, the intensity of the sorrow that we feel is short-lived—we are able to carry on with our lives quite normally. We know, as individuals we can do jolly little to change anything on this planet.  Is that wholly true? I went to Calgary in Canada recently to spend time with my son and daughter-in-law. The wonderful roads, neat and even footpaths and walking trails and the marvelous traffic sense of the drivers of…

Ongoing construction of the Kittur Rani Chennamma flyover at what is popularly known as Devegowda Petrol Bunk junction in Bengaluru has turned the area into a war-zone. Many beautiful trees have been brought down, footpaths are broken, streetlights have been removed and the fence between the pavement and the massive Rajakaluve (now a drain really) has been opened up. Pedestrians have to endlessly battle bulldozers, open drains and ditches, cement blocks with metal rods jutting out, no street lights (thus absolute darkness in the night) and a never-ending stream of heavy vehicular traffic, day and night. Footpath has been dug…