Civic

"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…

Some make it to the news. Especially when it involves a well-known public figure like Cyrus Mistry, or a celebrity sportsperson like Rishabh Pant. Some find sharp but transient attention in public discourse, such as all those pothole-related fatalities, or incidents like the horrific one in Delhi that rocked the nation at the start of the year. Others are simply relegated to an obscure corner of the daily newspaper, while many many more are never reported at all. The truth, though, is that every single road crash is one too many. Yet through years of deliberations, legislation and piecemeal initiatives…

PM to bring in a showering of infrastructure projects Prime Minister Narendra Modi's presence in Mumbai in the coming week on January 19th is expected to bring about multiple projects in the city. Among these are: seven sewage treatment plants (STP) at different locations across the city; the PM SVANidhi scheme, offering loans to street vendors; bhoomipujan of concrete roads worth Rs 6,000 crore; and the laying of foundation stones for the reconstruction of two civic hospitals. Phase 2 of the metro lines 2A, and 7 may also be on the cards, as well as Navi Mumbai's metro stretch between…

Special buses to be operated from Chennai for Pongal As a large number of people are expected to travel from Chennai to various districts in view of the Pongal holidays, Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) and State Express Transport Corporation (SETC) are operating special buses between January 12 and 14 and on January 18 and 19 from six bus termini namely Madhavaram New Bus stand, K.K. Nagar MTC Bus Terminus, Tambaram MEPZ Anna Bus Stand, Tambaram Railway station Bus Stand, Poonamallee Bus stand and Puratchi Thalaivar Dr MGR Bus Terminus (CMBT Koyambedu bus stand). Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Transport Corporation…

'Rapid road' develops cracks The BBMP’s (Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike) ‘rapid road’ experiment in Old Madras Road near Indiranagar, inaugurated by Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai last month, has already developed cracks in several places. Civic authorities had claimed that the 375-metre stretch of Old Madras Road in Indiranagar, built using new technology, would last for 40 years. The government plans to take up white-topping using the old method. Bommai agreed to the third phase of the project comprising 89 roads, at Rs 1,429 crore, to fit the 2022-23 scheduled rates (SR). The IISc (Indian Institute of Science) has agreed to…

The revamped Church Street, which opened to the public in 2018, was built to be primarily pedestrian-friendly. The project also integrated all the networked services under the road – water, sewage, power, gas, and stormwater drains, ensuring minimum disruptions. (In)famous for being dotted with restaurants, bars, and pubs, Church Street is an attraction for tourists and residents, alike. The videos and reports on social media of how the street, and the adjacent Mahatma Gandhi (MG) road, were crowded on New Year's eve, vouch for its popularity. Five years later, even as Church Street is recognised for its design and aesthetics,…

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…

The year 2022 ended with dramatic scenes at the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) headquarters. The police stationed at the headquarters had to break off the scuffle between the two Shiv Sena factions. The fight was over the control of the Sena office situated inside the historic BMC building at Fort. Like the Sena, a number of political parties have their offices on the ground floor of the headquarters. However, after the brawl all the party offices were sealed off on the orders of BMC Administrator IS Chahal. This blanket lockdown on their offices has irked politicians across party lines. They…

When Cyclone Mandous and its wake dumped considerable rain in Chennai suburbs as well as the city, residents in gated communities and housing units experienced yet another year of misery. It was in stark contrast to the marketed images of gated communities where people happily drive in and out of luxury enclaves in flashy cars and spend time in butterfly gardens as children play in the warm sunshine. Residents had to put up with choked patchy inundated roads, the stench of stagnant floodwater and rotting refuse, and a proliferation of invasive giant African snails that comes after the rains. Chennai…

The United Nations adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in 2015 to universally take a stand to end poverty and protect the planet. The UN set 2030 as the target year to achieve these goals, which India has accepted. NITI Aayog's inaugural SDG Urban Index and Dashboard for 2021–22 is aimed at driving SDG localisation in Indian cities, under the umbrella of Indo-German Development Cooperation. The policy think tank's monitoring tool at the Urban Local Body level localises the global goals. The dashboard's index framework consists of 56 ULBs and 77 indicators (from 15 SDGs). The data on these indicators…