DATA

Data from BBMP shows that Bengaluru’s 198 wards have together contributed Rs 5430 crores as property tax over the last three years. 2016-17: Rs 1743 crores 2017-18: Rs 1761 crores 2018-19: Rs 1926 crores The tax collection by ward varies from one extreme - 282 crores in three years collected by Bellandur, to another - 69 lakhs collected in Chalavadipalya. Bellandur which occupies 3.6% of the area covered by Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has collected Rs 103 crores out of Rs 1926 crores, that is more than 5% of the total collection. The top 34 wards have contributed almost…

A private car should ideally carry four to five people. But a recent survey in Udyog Vihar Industrial Area in Gurugram showed that it carries only 1.6 persons on average. The survey was conducted by the IT company Nagarro among over 2600 of its own employees. Among the survey respondents, 42 percent were using private cars to come to office, contributing to the infamous congestion in the city. The majority of them did not carpool. A quarter of the car users sometimes parked their cars on the street next to office, which could also congest the road. Another 19 percent…

In mid December 2018, the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General’s performance audit on Solid Waste Management (SWM) in 35 test-checked Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) in Karnataka was tabled at the state assembly. The report painted a rather sorry picture of the way these civic bodies had been going about the task of solid waste management in their municipalities and called out instances of flawed collection, ineffectual bans on plastic, faulty handling of e-waste and unauthorised slaughter houses among various other gaps. However, that is not where the CAG indictment of the ULBs ended. As per Paragraph 7.2 of…

If you are a person who commutes by walk to work or just likes to walk, you would understand how difficult that can be in Bengaluru - due to non-existent footpaths. Even if they exist they are usually less wide or in a decrepit state. Having to cross the roads is another herculean task. When one thinks of road accidents, rarely does one think of situations where pedestrians are involved. A study by National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) had earlier pointed to pedestrians being among the most vulnerable to road accidents, accounting for around 30-40 percent of…

For most of us, owning a home is an important goal and milestone in our lives. It is the largest financial investment we make in our life. Finding out if it is a good time to invest in real estate is one of the key questions for people who want to buy a home. This is a decision that will finally lead all of us to a housing loan with an average tenure of 15 years, making a significant dent in our monthly budgets, thanks to the loan EMIs. So what would be a good starting point that can help…

This article is supported by SVP Cities of India Fellowship How many people in Bengaluru use Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Company (BMTC) buses, which are perceived to be the lifeline of the city, everyday? BMTC figures say the ridership is 51 lakh. This means BMTC, with its 6650 buses, sells 51 lakh tickets daily from the 70,892 trips it undertakes. Each bus undertakes an average of 5-6 round trips per day. There are demands for increasing BMTC buses. But will more buses help? Look at the city’s roads - the traffic crawls at such a low speed that even walking can…

When Heather Ramaswamy, a resident of Bengaluru, decided to construct her house three years ago, rooftop solar PV was the first thing on her mind. Following days of research over the Internet, Heather zeroed in on an American company. Committing to an upfront cost of Rs 4 lakh, Heather got four solar panels installed on her slanting rooftop and thus began her series of never-ending ordeals. “You think that you did something good for the environment till it backfires on you. We got an off-grid unit, which was supposed to meet our power requirements. We had the on-grid system in…

A recent survey by the Information and Resource Center for Deprived Urban Communities (IRCDUC) has shed light on the precarious living conditions and lack of access to basic services by a majority of homeless children in the city. The city's homeless have long been relegated to the fringes and left to fend for themselves. Efforts to increase the number of night shelters and other services available to them has moved at glacial pace. Understanding the services available and availed by the urban homeless, especially children, becomes vital to improve facilities and service delivery. The IRCDUC survey examined eleven parameters including…

It has been six years since Bengaluru’s waste management mess was brought to the notice of the High Court of Karnataka through a Public Interest Litigation, by Kavitha Shankar and the Solid Waste Management Round Table team. While the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has undertaken many measures to help manage waste better, there is lots more that remains to be done. When the PIL began in 2012, the city of Bengaluru was producing about 3,500 tonnes of waste per day, with no waste segregation in place and all waste going to landfill. All mixed garbage from the city was…

This article is part of a special series: Air Quality in our Cities M Karthik, Chennai-based software engineer was mighty pleased when he purchased his 350cc Royal Enfield Classic from a showroom in Anna Nagar. But his excitement was considerably muted when he found out that his make of vehicle was among the highest polluting two-wheelers available. Deeply environmentally conscious, Karthik says, “Had I known that my vehicle emits such a lot of greenhouse gases, I would have changed my decision.” But how would he know? Is there really a way for vehicle owners to gauge the emissions from the…