OPINION

On September 23, the Deputy Comissioner, Bengaluru Urban district, is hosting a virtual public consultation to discuss the environmental impacts of the proposed Peripheral Ring Road (PRR). The project has been in the news for a number of issues - continued public opposition over non-availability of the Detailed Project Report (DPR); the validity of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report; the number of trees which will be felled for it; the plethora of court cases brought in by a number of citizens set to lose their properties. That is quite a long list. Sure, the devil is in the details,…

A couple voting in the BBMP elections of 2015. What does it mean for Bengalureans to not have an elected Council now? File Pic: Akshatha M On September 10, the tenure of the BBMP Council ended, and the state government stepped in to appoint senior bureaucrat Gaurav Gupta as the corporation's administrator. Gaurav Gupta will remain in charge of the corporation until a new bunch of corporators are elected in the next Council election. It was a move that didn't surprise many who had been watching the space. But the Council elections aren't on the horizon anytime soon - partly…

“Read up. You really should. There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before.” These are famous lines from Arthur Conan Doyle’s 'A Study in Scarlet'. A problem or its solution have all transpired before. But have we missed the lessons? It has been nine months since the first case of COVID-19 was reported from Wuhan, China in November 2019. The problem took a life of its own and knocked on India’s shores through Kerala in January 2020. It became Bengaluru's problem in March of 2020. While Bengaluru started out well in keeping the pandemic under…

It was the first thing on her to-do list as restrictions eased with Lockdown 5. Manjula recharged her phone for Rs 400. “I may have to skip a meal for this” she laments as the expense eats into her non-existent savings. “But my Amma should be able to call now” is her hope as she waits for her employers to call her back to work.  Working as a domestic help has been more than a decade of Manjula’s life.  She turned up at homes everyday like clockwork, to clean them without a day off. She stayed behind to help when they…

Bengaluru, predicted to be the fastest growing city in the world for the next 15 years, is already facing an acute water crisis. Its rapid infrastructural expansion has led to an ever-increasing demand for water, and local government bodies haven’t been able to keep up. The BWSSB (Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board), tasked with water supply, still doesn’t cover the 110 surrounding villages that had been merged into the city in 2007. Over the years, private water tanker operators have bridged this gap in water supply, playing a crucial role in the city’s daily life. However, they operate without…

Why do Shramik trains arranged after a 60-day long wait by workers have to be so carefully mismanaged? How do they end up taking extra-long routes? And why are passengers given such meagre amounts of water and food? Is this what ‘shramiks’ should get after spending days trying to satisfy all procedures, whims and fancies of the concerned departments and officials?  Why does everything to do with workers have to be a planned nightmare?  Let me share snippets from the journey of a worker from Bengaluru to Jampani village in Jharkhand, which led me to ask these questions.  The journey…

Over the last few weeks, the sight of garbage pickers and their trucks plying on empty streets in the early mornings has taught us the value of poor migrant labourers who provide essential services in our metros.  From the relative comfort of middle-class homes, we have learnt about their lives and have been moved by their plight.  But, there is another aspect of their predicament, which became clear to me only when I began supplying essential drugs and food packets to their families.  For some years, my friends and I, as volunteers of the Aam Aadmi Party, had held health…

[In Part 1 of this analysis, I discussed budget figures for 2020-21, and how resource mobilisation of the BBMP can be bettered. This concluding part is on suggestions to improve the finances of the civic body and how that can translate to efficiency.] A major source that the BBMP should tap for revenue -- after property taxes and leasing advertisement hoardings -- is to monetise its real estate through lease and rentals. Revenue from lease and rentals BBMP reportedly owns more than 20,000 properties across the city and most of them in prime locations. The rentals fixed are abominably low…

Karnataka’s Urban Development Department, through the Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT), has prepared a draft Parking Policy for Bengaluru city. Citizens can send their feedback on the policy to DULT until May 15. DULT says the policy has been formulated to achieve the following goals in a systematic and time bound manner: Move from chaotic parking to well-organised parkingMove from free parking to paid parkingMove from government-driven parking supply to market-driven parking supply and managementMove from passive and weak enforcement of parking regulations to active management of parking demand. Comments on the proposed parking policy The policy aims to…

The more important question is: What should they be doing? From what I can see, some are involved in the distribution of food and rations, some have taken a more proactive approach in organising home delivery of medicines and groceries, some are seen buying vegetables directly from the farmers and some are busy sticking labels on government-provided ration kits. Now, all this is good, but it doesn’t really fulfil their job description. Functions of MPs and MLAs MPs and MLAs perform two main functions:  Legislation: Pass laws Oversight: Ensure government performs as expected Oversight includes monitoring government programmes, identifying gaps…