Civic

Lack of reliable irrigation schemes leads to agriculture land being unutilised. Pic: Shree D N March 22, 2016. No sign of good rains in near future. A farmer, Chandrashekharaiah, who has some land near Hesaraghatta, is worried about what he can do on his land, to reduce his water needs and get better returns. He used to grow paddy, millets and vegetables earlier. Now he is not concerned about food crops, because the effort and labour required is more than what he can earn from it. And he does not want to end up becoming yet another farmer who could…

With a continued influx of people setting down with Bengaluru, a majority of the population is now living in apartments. On Saturday March 19th, ApartmentADDA, an organisation that hosts private, secure portals for apartment complexes, is conducting a workshop aimed at citizens living in these apartments. Citizen Matters is the media partner for the workshop. The workshop, Neighborhoods of Tomorrow, will bring together various members of the society—apartment management committees, subject matters experts, representatives from the city administrations—to arrive at solutions to the problems that every neighbourhood faces. The workshop, touted to be India’s largest convention of management committee members,…

Residents of Koramangala and users of the Koramangala 3rd Block playground participated in a Walk/Run event conducted on March 6th. The event had two twin objectives – to raise funds for charitable purposes and to focus attention on the need to save the Koramangala 3rd Block Playground. More than 300 men women and children of all ages participated. Walk and run events were held two distance categories – 2.5 km and 5 km. Over 300 residents showed up for the Save our Playground walk/run event. Pic: Nitin Seshadri A civic amenity site located contiguous to the BBMP Playground in Koramangala 3rd…

Residents Welfare Associations across Indira Nagar have been working towards getting rid of the commercial enterprises in the residential streets of their neighbourhood. Members of the RWAs in Indira Nagar 1st Stage and 2nd Stage had filed RTIs last year to figure out if the commercial establishments in their neighbourhood had a valid trade licence, as the Karnataka High Court order states that:  “The BBMP shall not permit or grant any change of land usage in the following areas: Malleswaram, Richmond Town, Vasanthnagar, Jayanagar, Vijayanagar, Vishweshwarapuram, Rajajinagar and RT Nagar. In addition thereto, residential areas mentioned and shown in CDP…

Common Purpose, sponsored by Comic Relief, is running an online crowd sourcing challenge to explore how we can increase civic engagement in Bengaluru. The Common Purpose Challenge, which is also running in Manchester, United Kingdom is asking residents of both cities to work together to generate new ideas that will increase civic engagement. The winning ideas will be presented to a distinguished panel led by Academy Award winner David Puttnam, and including Director General of Police, Karnataka, MN Reddi and Trustee of Bangalore Little Theatre, Vijay Padaki. The challenge is hosted online through Crowdicity, an innovative crowd sourcing platform. Residents…

B.PAC is working with Hasiru Mithra (the HSR Layout residents’ initiative) and Syngene on a neighbourhood cleanup drive. This will be a sustained campaign to drive corporate social engagement that brings corporates, neighborhood communities and BBMP together to clean, drive behavioural change and monitor progress. Employees and residents of the neigbourhood work together to beautify their locality and appoint wardens who will keep watch on the neighbourhood to ensure that the cleaned up areas do not relapse into their original state. Cleanup drive on January 30th The 27th main road in HSR Layout is one of the prime roads in the…

A foggy start to the morning. Pic: Kere Habba* On January 9th 2016, Kaikondrahalli Lake played host to a bunch of events for the second time with more than 4,500 people from neighbourhood participating. Kere Habba 2016 aimed at raising awareness, increasing community participation and fostering an appreciation of lakes in Bangalore. Birders looking to spot as many species. Pic: Kere Habba* Dechamma Chetan, a visitor said, "The lake is a beautiful place for bird watching", and that she had a great time. Another visitor, Chirdeep Shetty, he said too loved the event. Mukesh, who lives near the lake, came…

The Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL), a public sector major, via its wholly owned subsidiary, GAIL Gas, has secured BBMP permission to lay liquified natural gas (LNG) 'last mile' pipelines for retail consumers in some parts of Bengaluru including HSR Layout (other areas being Jalahalli, etc).   The HSR pipeline network is one of the tail ends of the 1386 kilometer long Dabhol-Bangalore LNG pipeline, work on which was inaugurated by the former prime minister Manmohan Singh in December 2013 and was commissioned in February 2015. Digging trenches for the first part of the work has commenced in the…

The Karnataka Municipal Act 1976, amended as per the requirements of the famous 74th Constitutional Amendment in 1994, stipulates that there “…be a ward committee for each ward … (that) shall consist of … the Councillor representing the ward … (and) ten other members … (including) members of resident’s associations...” The KMC Act further stipulates that the “ward committee... prepare ward development schemes, … , ensure proper utilization of funds, ..., supervise all programmes and schemes being implemented by the corporation … .” If all went as per the Act’s designs, the ward committee would “ensure timely collection of taxes,…

Several months ago I wrote about my attempts to get a streetlight fixed on the `model street' of 15th Cross Malleshwaram. First some `jugaad' work had been done by BBMP. When I complained - nothing happened. Then providence intervened in the form of a truck backing up and breaking the light - resulting in the light - still functional - leaning precariously against a fence, possibly electrifying it. An urgent complaint to the MLA's office as well as BBMP got the job done - they removed the streetlight - and with it, the jugaad job. Picture on August 26th 2015…