Civic

On June 24th, the Bannerghatta Road Neighbourhood Association (BANA) organised "Connect", a knowledge sharing seminar at Purva Panorama Apartments at Bannerghata Road.  BANA is a federation formed by a group of RWAs of apartments and layouts in and around on Bannerghatta Road. The forum will be used to resolve common issues and create a strong local community. The founding members include resident associations of L&T South City, Purva Panorama, South Avenue Layout, Pride Regalia, Ajmera Green Acres, Vithola Apartments, Nandi Park, Mantri Woodlands, Esteem Enclave etc. BANA office bearers at the meeting. Prem Sarkar, Shankar Bharadwaj, Kedar Nayak, Vivek Baliga.…

"Mamma, why is India like this? No other country we've been to is like this." And he's been to Singapore, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, Australia and Egypt.This was my 11-year old lamenting as we walked on the footpath on one of our Bangalore roads. We encountered numerous obstacles on the way - mounds of mud and rubble, poo, burnt leaves, a broken commode, packets of old clothes, stinking garbage, fighting dogs, a pani-puri cart and its customers, an old man stretching his hands out for alms, a man relieving himself at the 'footpath urinal'. Some places had gaping holes filled with…

To the casual observer, it may appear that Residents Welfare Associations (RWAs) in the city often work in silos; they are not often effective and find it tough to tackle larger issues. This may even be true. However, over the past decade, Bangalore has been seeing more residents’ activism. Together, they tell a story of change. For instance, more RWAs are now teaming up to form federations. The newest kid on the block is Bannerghatta Road Neighbourhoods Association or BANA. Emerging networks In the newer gated communities and apartments, the owners associations are networked well and reach out to their…

MLA Satish Reddy (Bommanahalli Constituency) presided over a meeting of all office bearers of Residents Welfare Associations (RWA) and the Federation of HSR Layout on June 4, Monday, to discuss infrastructural and other issues. Concerned Engineers responded to questions from the RWAs, closely monitored by the MLA. Perhaps for the first time, we were happy to see the elected representatives, all the concerned engineers and staff of BBMP, BDA and officials from Police Department, present under one roof in such a review meeting alongside representatives of RWAs. The meeting lasted over two hours and was conducted with utmost seriousness. The…

When an apartment is built and it is eventually occupied, a few questions do the rounds within the new community. There are always common issues to be coordinated with the builder regarding teething troubles, maintenance, handover and several such issues. Normally, a group of owners comes together to coordinate on behalf of the community. For a period, I was one of them in our large apartment located near Marathahalli in Bengaluru. Among the various challenges we faced, one of the toughest questions to answer was on registering the owner’s association. Today, if a community is lucky, the builder registers the…

Members of Federation of Residents Welfare Association of Ward 148 (Ejipura) known as FORWARD 68 brought civic officials for a one-on-one session in its quarterly review meeting on 19th May.The meeting was held in Ashwini Layout, primarily to discuss the resident's grievances. Members of RWAs from Ashwini Layout, Venugopalaswamy Layout, ST Bed Koramangala, Ejipura New Extension Residents' Association (ENERA) and Chandra Reddy Layout voiced their problems with BBMP, BWSSB and BESCOM officials. Member of Forward-68 attending the meeting. Pic: Abhishek Angad Anil Kumar , Secretary , FORWARD 68 drove the meeting and allowed concerned residents in turns to inquire about their…

Sanjiv Balgopal, on behalf of the association, had sent a complaint to the HSR layout police station on April 8th, 2012. He asked the police to investigate and take action. The letter contained number plate details of the truck and dumping, along with a CD containing pictures. In return, a month later, on May 7, Balgopal received a summon notice from the sub-inspector of police, HSR police station! Not satisfied with the citizens’ letter, Srinivas Reddy, Inspector, asked Balgopal to go to the spot, investigate and submit a first hand report instead. Speaking to Citizen Matters,  Reddy would only say…

Vijayan Menon, member of Citizens’ Action Forum and a Koramangala resident, Brigadier R S Murthy of HSR RWA Federation, RTI activist Chandra Shekhar, Muralidhar Rao, member of  Koramangala Initiative, Ramesh Sivaram of Forward150 (Bellandur RWA), Ganesan M of Save Agara group, and Citizen Matters co-founder Meera K, gathered in the evening. With the High Court cancelling Agara lake’s PPP contract recently, the LDA is open to citizens involvement to save the lake. The residents agreed that the 42-acres lake would be a big challenge to revive. Menon pointed out that without healthy water bodies to revive the groundwater table, future…

Less than four months since a High Court order barred commercialisation of residential areas in Bangalore, flouting the verdict remains the norm.  The HC had ruled in January this year on a petition filed by the Citizens’ Action Forum (CAF) and 12 other individuals. The petitioners, some of whom are from Koramangala, had challenged the BDA’s Revised Master Plan 2005-15 (RMP) for allowing commercialisation in residential areas.The January 27 verdict barring shops in residential areas surprised the residents as there was a big question about its implementation. The RWA members and lawyer Aditya Sondhi had second thoughts about the execution…

Slumdwellers here have been facing acute water shortage for the past three months. The two bore wells in the slum are sufficient to satisfy the water needs of the people. But the motor which pumps water stopped working and this broke water supply.“We have to travel three kilometers daily for getting water from Austin town. We take bath only once in a week due to the water shortage. Some time we may not get water that force us to buy water for higher prices,” said Habeeb A S, a local resident. Ejipura slum, wairting for new housing since 2004. Pic:…