GENRE: In Focus

Speeding two-wheelers, Electricity Board (EB) boxes (working or otherwise), tree stumps and encroachments, and no space to walk. The picture this conjures explains the pathetic state of footpaths in Chennai, a city with a significant percentage of pedestrians in the traffic. On one hand, the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) claims to be creating more footpaths and cycle paths in the city. “We will soon be creating footpaths along 80 percent of the city roads, to facilitate the movement of pedestrians,” said a senior corporation official. On the other, the civic body has flouted several rules in its footpath construction in…

On hot summer days in Bangalore, India, it is common to see public water taps on roadsides hissing and spurting as water struggles to come out. People crowd around the tap with pots of brightly coloured plastic, burnished brass or steel, waiting for their turn. Many of these people have come from homes without such luxuries as indoor plumbing and will return carrying enough water to last several days. More privileged citizens have water piped to their houses in larger quantities – and more frequently. But even for them, interrupted water supply and rationing have always been a fact of…

Heat, dust and pollution are characterising Bengaluru these days, as opposed to the calm cool heavenly weather that made it a “garden City.The city is slowly losing its green cover and is turning brown with concrete buildings and heat islands. There are efforts from NGOs and citizens to plant trees. But what should the government look at, explores Shashank Athreya of Vidhi Centre for Legal policy. Among the biggest challenges cities face, securing the city’s environment is one of the most important. The definition of “environment” in an urban context is broader than its traditional meaning since it includes the…

Lokpal and Lokayukta Acts were introduced by the Congress in 2013 and received the President’s nod to become law in 2014. The Act made it mandatory for states to set up a Lokayukta within one year of constitution of the Lokpal at the centre. However, Tamil Nadu (TN) and Jammu & Kashmir, are the only states which have not even constituted the Lokayukta yet through the passage of the Lokayukta Act, way past the one-year deadline. In 2015 the High Court pulled up the TN state government in response to a PIL for not setting up the Lokayukta. At that…

“I have cleared my house of all the plastic bags. I cannot afford to pay Rs 5,000 as fine.” “Madam, they are saying that they will come to check our houses to see if we have plastic. Do you think they will come?” “Everyone on the road is carrying cloth bags today. Who wants to pay fine? ” “Vegetable vendors are telling us to go home and bring a bag. None of them have plastic bags.” “Will it be alright to carry this water bottle? I won’t be caught and fined, right?” The Maharashtra Plastic and Thermocol Products (Manufacture, Usage,…

“I have cleared my house of all the plastic bags. I cannot afford to pay Rs 5,000 as fine.” “Madam, they are saying that they will come to check our houses to see if we have plastic. Do you think they will come?” “Everyone on the road is carrying cloth bags today. Who wants to pay fine? ” “Vegetable vendors are telling us to go home and bring a bag. None of them have plastic bags.” “Will it be alright to carry this water bottle? I won’t be caught and fined, right?” The Maharashtra Plastic and Thermocol Products (Manufacture, Usage,…

An auto stops on Tannery road. Five adults seat themselves in the back. One adult, with a toddler on his lap, shares the seat with the driver. The overcrowded auto carries them forward, navigating narrow roads. It swiftly drops them in a location and picks up more passengers going to a nearby destination. This is a common practice across Bengaluru today where there is insufficient last mile connectivity. The concept of shared autos prevalent in Chennai and Hyderabad has slowly entered Bengaluru over the years, but this informal system is relatively unheard of and seldom spoken about. Auto drivers who…

With Urban India alone generating a gigantic 1.5 lakh metric tonnes per day of Municipal Solid Waste, waste management has grown to become a huge burden in urban India. Despite the existence of strong laws -- Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules, 2016 and Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016 -- cities are stuck at the implementation level. Now, a new report shows that while smaller cities have done a good job of complying with the major clauses of key environmental legislation, larger cities including Bengaluru and New Delhi are yet to satisfy the basic mandate of waste management: source segregation, or in…

In the first part of our series on ambulance services in the city, Citizen Matters focused on the challenges and memorable moments in the lives of ambulance crew serving the city and state. Running an ambulance service is truly exciting work. It is a heart filling service that includes saving the lives of strangers in the quickest way possible, says Uma Maheswari, IAS, Project Director, Tamil Nadu Health Systems Project, Government of Tamil Nadu. 108 ambulance services are operated under the Public Private Partnership framework  by GVK EMRI (Emergency Management and Research Institute), a not-for-profit organisation and the Tamil Nadu government.…

Green index of Kolkata is in danger more than ever before. Management of  energy to water to waste is on a southward spiral in the developing neighbourhoods. Kolkata generates about 4000 metric tons of waste per day. Solid waste disposal is becoming a serious concern in the city since Dhapa Landfill, where most of the waste goes, is already filled to the brim. The landfill, which was set up in 1941 and has 50-feet-tall mountains of garbage, needs serious scientific reconstruction and restructuring. Firms from abroad have been consulted to start this process but they advised stopping usage of the site to get the…