URBAN PLANNING

KSNDMC warns of possible flooding in September Bengalureans felt the ripple effect of floods in Kodagu District (where a rainfall of 768mm left villages ravaged) on August 24, when the city received 43 mm of rainfall till 9 pm. Areas such as Malleswaram, Rajajinagar, Hebbal, Sadashivanagar, Kengeri, Adugodi and Mysore road received very heavy rainfall. Once the rain started, Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre (KSNDMC) issued warnings by dispatching messages through their mobile application to certain key areas. The centre has forecast heavy rain in the immediate future, and has intimated the same to BBMP. Scientists warn that 80 mm…

If you are an apartment or home owner in Chennai, you would most likely have received a form for self declaration of Property Tax, from the revenue office of Greater Chennai Corporation. Most home and apartment owners were caught unawares, not only by the requirement itself, as there has been no such form to fill in the past twenty years, but also by the deadline of August 31st to fill and submit it. Here is a quick explainer about the form and its connection with property tax. According to a senior official from Chennai Corporation, there are 12.65 lakh home and…

The devastating floods in Kerala have ravaged life in the state, with 223 officially reported deaths and 10.28 lakh people stationed across 3274 relief camps, as shared by the state’s Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. The central government has described such unprecedented nature’s fury in the southern state as a ‘calamity of severe nature’. In what reaffirms faith in humanity, help has been pouring in from all quarters to god’s own country, and people have been pitching in to help the flood-stricken reconstruct their lives. Tamil Nadu shares the Mullaperiyar river with Kerala and has been a party to the century-long rivalry…

Dear Chief Minister of Karnataka, With great urgency, in your very first budget, you have announced an undebated ‘Elevated Corridor’ project that has not had public consultation, and followed no due process. Another project is an untested technology called ‘Pod Taxi’, again not following any due process or transparency! These are listed neither in the master plan for Bengaluru, nor in any integrated mobility plan for the city. These will impact the 1.2 crore residents of the city in many ways. The Elevated Corridors project will cost the exchequer Rs. 34,000 crores, 151 acres of land, and almost 4000 trees.…

B'luru ranked in 58th position on livability index Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri released the 'Ease of Living Index–2018’ on August 13th. Bengaluru was ranked in 58th place in the overall list, among 111 Indian cities surveyed, based on aggregated scores in four categories: institutional governance, social, economic and physical infrastructure. To ensure accurate reflection of the ease of living in Indian cities through this ranking, marks were awarded against 78 indicators in 15 sub-categories. Barring the category of open spaces, in which the former garden city fared reasonably well in 16th place, Bengaluru was at the bottom of the list…

9.45 acres. Three officials in charge and at least 1.5 lakh rupees of public money spent every month on this near-defunct institution. These details pertain to the only government beggar rehabilitation centre located at Melpakkam near Avadi that has had no inmates for more than three years now. There are three permanent officers who live at the Centre itself, besides 14 officers who work on deputation basis. Even if we ignore the salaries of deputed officers for the time being, who also work in leprosy homes in Tamil Nadu, the three officers are paid between 40,000 to 70,000 every month, as shared…

Sixteen years after the Karnataka High Court ordered the closure of all abattoirs within Bengaluru city limits and instructed the state government and the municipal authority to construct alternative facilities on the outskirts of the city, the first steps in that direction are visible. According to Dr K P Ramesh, official working at the Animal Husbandry Department in the Bangalore Bruhat Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), a new abattoir is being built on a 40-acre site within the KSIDC industrial estate at Harohalli, 34 km from the city and is expected to be commissioned by mid-2019. Not only this, concrete steps are…

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal launched the month with a "visual" move. He read out and defiantly tore a report sent by Lieutenant-Governor Anil Baijal on the installation of closed-circuit television (CCTV) surveillance camera systems in the capital. The LG's document referred to a monitoring panel, police licensing and public suggestions for installation of CCTV cameras. It said that every owner and data controller of camera systems culling information from the public needs to disclose the "purpose, number, location, manner of usage, handling and storage of data or information" as well as other related details. However, the CM is of…

No notice. No alternative housing. Tsunami survivors at Nochi Nagar near Marina beach are left in the lurch as the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board (TNSCB) is tearing down their temporary shelters, in brazen violation of the residents' basic rights. As their houses are destroyed before their eyes, the Nochi Nagar residents stare at an uncertain future, a future in which they will have to shell out exorbitant sums for rental housing if they want a roof over their heads. They say they have been victims of discrimination throughout -- eleven years ago, they didn’t get the houses meant for them and…

Sanitation woes Public toilets in the city have come under the scanner for poor maintenance, lack of facilities and sheer inadequacy in number required to cater to a population the size of Chennai's. A subset of this issue is the lack of access to toilets for women. Dhagam Foundation’s recent event, Kakkoos-a-kaanom highlighted this problem plaguing people from all walks of life, especially women. The NGO had undertaken a meticulous social audit that covered 613 public toilets across the 15 zones in the city. A perception survey was also conducted among 1351 individuals on the myriad issues that prevent them…