CITIZEN JOURNALISM

Across Bengaluru, apartments have been popping up like mushrooms over the years. This poses several challenges to the city, including waste management. Though BBMP (Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike) has introduced many rules that require apartments to manage their own waste, not all apartments follow these. Some apartments face practical difficulties such as lack of space or the heavy investment needed to install a composting unit. The poor management of waste affects not just apartment residents, but all citizens. But the solution could be quite simple. Back in the olden days, people used to segregate and compost their wet waste - mainly…

The newly introduced Dial for Water 2.0 scheme by the Metro Water Department is being billed as the panacea for long delays in  water supply, but it could be a classic case of the cure turning out to be worse than the disease. As per the new scheme, one has to make an on-line payment while booking is made.  This means that only those who have the wherewithal to make on-line payment can make the bookings. The new scheme says it will not allow a consumer to make further bookings if he does not confirm receipt of the previous supply…

Recently, the citizens' movement CfB (Citizens for Bengaluru) presented the Corporator #1 awards to the BBMP councillors who had attended the most ward committee meetings. If you are convinced that ward committee is an effective mechanism to engage with the government, this articles gives some pointers for you to get started. Bengaluru's governance is what it is due to decades of apathy and lack of active citizen participation. There are no instant fixes, but things can be improved if committed citizens come together and work on the ground with a clear action plan. The good news is, there are many…

Chennai had a severely deficient monsoon in 2018 with 40% less rain than normal. Since then, the city has been bracing itself for a water crisis. But clearly not enough had been done and the severe water scarcity this summer has been a wake-up call for people, highlighting the urgency of finding ways to use their water resources better. Though rainwater harvesting was made mandatory in 2003 when the city experienced similar drought like conditions, the idea has been poorly implemented across the city. With the recent water crisis, the focus has shifted to efforts that the citizens can undertake…

For the last three years, citizens plying on Medavakkam road are waiting for the Medavakkam-Koot road flyover to be ready so that their daily woes come to an end. This 4-km stretch has been in complete shambles, thanks to the ever-ongoing flyover construction that started in 2016, but the completion of which does not seem remotely imminent. Medavakkam road connects Tambaram with Pallikaranai and is also an important junction to reach the Elcot SEZ in Sholinganallur, a major hub for IT professionals in the city. This flyover will facilitate non-stop movement of vehicles between Pallikaranai and Tambaram, enabling them to…

In a packed Town Hall on Sunday, 14th July, citizens conferred the Corporator #1 Awards (Namma Samiti Puraskaara) to 51 BBMP corporators. Justice Santosh Hegde, chief guest at the event, honoured the winners with a traditional Mysuru Petta. The winners were chosen based on the number of ward committee meetings held in their wards so far - that is, between last December and this June.  Corporators who had held two-third of the monthly meetings - that is, at least four - have been conferred the award. Following are the award winners: Ward No Ward Name Corporator 5 Jakkur Muneendra Kumar…

“A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It’s where the rich use public transport,” is an interesting remark by Enrique Penalosa, the former Mayor of Bogotá, Colombia. Bengaluru needs to inspire a shift in the travel pattern of its citizens - from private transport to public transport. Buses are an awesome way to travel in the city. But we hear that BMTC finds Volvo AC buses unviable, and that the government is even considering taking these off the roads. According to BMTC’s 2017-18 annual report, the state-run corporation had lost around 6.9 lakh daily passengers…

On June 29th, hundreds of JP Nagar residents took part in a peace walk from MLR Convention Centre to Nandini Junction along 24th Main road. Our walk was against the illegal commercialisation and bad traffic planning along this stretch. Over 15,000 residents live around this 1.8 km-long stretch of 24th Main road. Thousands of commuters use it as well, but they take as much as 40-45 minutes to traverse it on a regular day. The reason is the unethical commercialisation of the area, which has led to infrastructure breakdown and deterioration of the neighbourhood. As per the Revised Master Plan (RMP…

Ward committees bring democracy to your doorstep, and give you a say in the planning and management of local work. The Nagarpalika Act, 1992, a central law, made ward committees mandatory for large cities. But this was not implemented in Bengaluru for long. It took years of citizen campaigning for ward committees to be formed at all. More recently, the High Court judgement in a PIL by the NGO Environment Support Group, and public outcry, compelled the Bengaluru Mayor to issue a direction to compulsorily hold ward committee meetings on the first Saturday of every month. Following this, the BBMP…

A clean, well-maintained OSR park lies next to the Main road in Elcot Avenue of Shollinganallur inviting the nearby residents for a stroll. Krishna and Lakshmi are the caretakers of this park and like them, there are other caretaker families looking after the four other OSR parks in the locality. Krishna and Lakshmi are one of the many families appointed by the Corporation to look after the OSR parks. They live in the park, where the day begins at 5 AM for them as they start trimming the bushes, cleaning the park and watering the plants. "We seldom water the…