GENRE: In Focus

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…

This summer, Jaipur’s temperatures are soaring upwards of 40 degree Celsius. Jaipur witnessed its hottest day (as of June 4, 2018) on April 26 when a temperature of 43.2 degree Celsius was recorded. Of late, at least some parts of the city are beginning to exhibit signs of climate change typical of large cities. With more concrete and asphalt replacing natural vegetation, “urban heat islands” are becoming a reality and Jaipur is a good example of this. Urban heat islands are pockets of densely populated areas in a city where temperatures are higher than the rest of the city, thanks to packed…

This article is supported by SVP Cities of India Fellowship Even as green cover in Bengaluru has been steadily declining over the last few decades, some efforts to reverse this phenomena are gathering momentum. The Government of Karnataka drafted The Karnataka Tree Cover Enhancement Policy, 2016 that targeted increasing forest and tree cover from the current 21% to 33%; in cities planting was to be done in residential and other layouts, institutional lands, private lands, etc. This policy is yet to be formalised, though the Forest Department has offered to take direct charge of afforestation and tree conservation programmes instead…

A group of ecologists, on what appears to be a boat, are holding an olive ridley turtle. The turtle is seen gasping for air and is trying to breathe through its mouth. A closer look reveals that the turtle’s left nostril is blocked. An ecologist tries to pull out the blockage with a pair of pliers. The turtle, writhing in pain, soon starts bleeding. The next seven minutes are harrowing, but finally ecologists succeed. While the turtle is free, ecologists, much to their dismay, learn that the stuff blocking the turtle’s nose was a plastic straw! This eight-minute-long YouTube video…

At a time when cities across India are rapidly losing green cover, Naya Raipur, the administrative capital of Chhattisgarh, stands out in its endeavour to ensure that the city has adequate greenery. The Naya Raipur Development Authority (NRDA) was established with the aim of creating a greenfield city with parks, botanical garden and a jungle safari. Naya Raipur's greening efforts aim to make it a model city with the target of 27% green cover under the Harihar Chhattisgarh mission. The 25-year development plan for the city envisions a 500-meter wide green belt of an area of 15.09 square kilometers surrounding the…

Solving their civic-woes has been a challenge for the 12 lakh residents living in the 110 villages on the outer circle in the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) limits, in Bengaluru. Not only has the struggle to get drinking-water been unfruitful, the lack of drainage network lets the sewage accumulate in open drains and lakes, causing irreversible long-term ecological and health problems. There is, however, about to be a slight change in their plight. The infrastructural work to lay underground drainage facilities in the five zones — Mahadevapura, Byatarayanapura, Bommanahalli, Dasarahalli and RR Nagar — officially commenced on March 15,…

Gopinath P (35) grew up in extreme water scarcity, in Vijayanagar village in Bengaluru. This is an area located in Mahadevapura, a zone earmarked under the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike's (BBMP's) 110 villages project. “My mother travelled 4.5 kms by foot often to Immadihalli village, where certain rich zamindars had built borewells owing to favourable water tables,” Gopinath says. Carrying plastic-pots attached to her waist and head, she along with many other villagers of Vijayanagar traveled to faraway villages seeking water. Tankers go every fortnight to one cross. But if the water is over, a resident who is supposed to…