GENRE: In Focus

"Nobody wants to pay the common electricity bill this time. It is Rs. 500 per household now. Earlier, it hardly used to cross Rs. 150 per household," says G Varsha, a resident of KK Nagar. She lives in an apartment with seven units. "We are shocked at the common EB bill and are hoping that they will reduce it soon hearing public demands." Her apartment has common lights, and a water motor as part of the common electrical connection. With Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation Limited (TANGEDCO) raising the EB tariff for almost all sectors in September 2022, we…

Final voter lists have been released for Shivajinagar, Mahadevapura and Chickpet, the assembly constituencies at the heart of the illegal voter data collection issue in Bengaluru. With this, electoral rolls have been completed for all 28 assembly constituencies in the city, based on the special summary revision organised by the State Election Commission between November 9th and December 8th in 2022. The lists for Bengaluru were finalised by the BBMP revenue department, the agency in charge of handling election logistics within city limits. With the illegal voter data cloud still looming over election agencies, officials promised to put their best…

With traffic and congestion in the city increasing day by day, Koyambedu, which is home to the Chennai Mofussil Bus Terminus (CMBT), the Omni bus terminus and the wholesale fruit and vegetable market has been facing bottlenecks on a daily basis. In an attempt to decongest the traffic, the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) has proposed to shift the operation of Omni buses and Mofussil buses that ply to the southern parts of Tamil Nadu to Kilambakkam where a Rs 393-crore bus terminus is being built. The construction of the Kilambakkam bus terminus near Vandalur in Chennai is nearing completion.…

Whether a stampede may recur at a railway station you use everyday, whether property prices in your suburb will appreciate with the addition of a modern mass transit system, whether decrepit chawl buildings will be redeveloped before they collapse, each of these quintessentially Mumbai concerns, are or should be, addressed through an urban planning exercise. Unknown to us, urban planners’ designs and agencies implementing them dictate how far from work we live, how we commute to work, what quality of life we may enjoy, how tools such as floor space index and transferable development rights may densify a particular area,…

Consumers in Bengaluru would have noticed discrepancies in their electricity bills last year, considering the tariffs went through three revisions in 2022 alone. In April 2022, the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC) revised the tariff for electricity consumers in the state by hiking the price by an additional 35 paisa for the fiscal year 2022-23. The report stated the hike in price was to recover a revenue deficit of Rs 2159.48 crore.  Following this, in June, the Commission accepted electricity supplying companies’ (escoms) proposal to recover the “money spent on increased fuel costs,” resulting in Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Limited…

Nazir Ahmed, a labourer, had bought a house in 1988 in the Achan area of Srinagar as land and home prices in the area were affordable for him then as compared to other areas of Srinagar. “When I shifted my belongings to the new house, I saw vehicles of Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) disposing of garbage in an open area, just a few hundred meters away from my house,” recalls Nazir. Nazir did not think much of this at the time. But as time passed, the few truckloads of SMC laden with garbage from different areas of Srinagar and dumping…

The Minister for Municipal Administration and Water Supply in August 2021 pointed out that 53% of the total population of Tamil Nadu is currently residing in urban areas and that this figure is likely to become 60% in 2036. The demographic and vulnerability profile of the urban homeless in Chennai are heterogeneous in nature and they face several intersectional issues. Currently, the shelter for the urban homeless is seen as the only viable solution to address the multi-dimensional vulnerabilities faced by the people. However, there is an emerging need to develop a comprehensive intervention to ensure access to basic services…

Accessible public transport has been a long-pending demand from disability activists across the country.  Our repeated efforts have resulted in some progress but there’s still a long way to go for affordable public transport to be inclusive.  In the case of Chennai, the long struggle to ensure the procurement of low-floor, accessible buses has been an issue that has reflected the treatment of those with disabilities in the public sphere. Experience with inaccessible buses in Chennai My own experience attempting to use buses in Chennai as a person with disabilities has been harrowing.  I had a fall out of a…

Access to sanitation is a human right, according to the United Nations. But when we conducted a spot-check of some public toilets in Chennai, not all of them were accessible, safe and usable. While the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) has made sure that the public toilets are free to use, many people do not yet have complete physical access to toilets or a safe and clean set-up to use with dignity. For instance, 128 families of around 400 people in Kannappar Thidal use the community toilet with four usable cubicles for women and six for men. Read more: Kannappar Thidal: Where residents continue their 20-year…

In a narrow gully in Thane’s Vartak Nagar, a small home-based unit of a contractor is also the assembly point for the area’s women to gather and take raw materials to make keychains. The contractor weighs and counts the keychain parts before wrapping them in a plastic bag. He notes the quantity in his diary and a small notebook that each woman carries with her. “Kal ka kitna bana (How many did you make yesterday),” the contractor asks each woman, who deposits the previous day’s keychains with him as he again records the quantity they have submitted. The women take…