Infrastructure

It takes very little to flood a road or home in Bengaluru. In recent weeks, rains have caused severe flooding in many parts of the city, especially in North Bengaluru. A report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on the city’s stormwater drain (SWD) system, released this September, shows why this shouldn’t be a surprise at all.  In any city, stormwater drains are critical for: Preventing flood and its related effectMaintaining clean lakes/water bodiesGroundwater recharge But Bengaluru’s drainage system has been badly mismanaged by the city corporation BBMP’s Stormwater Drain (SWD) department, finds the audit report. The report covered…

With torrential rains lashing Chennai since early November, which left several areas in the city such as T Nagar, Velachery and parts of North Chennai like Pulianthope inundated, the recurring and infamous phenomenon of unregulated and illegal construction in the city is back under the spotlight. Several reports and experts have pointed out yet again that along with faulty drains and blocked canals, rampant encroachments and illegal construction, especially along the banks of the Adyar and Cooum rivers and the Ennore-Kosasthalaiyar basin, have prevented water seepage, thus causing severe inundation. According to a recent report in The New Indian Express,…

This year, the incessant rains has brought the joy of seeing all dams across the state full. Yet it has also been a matter of concern as several low-rise multi dwelling buildings in Bengaluru have collapsed, with residents having had a narrow escape. These recent events of families losing their homes along with their entire life’s hard-earned savings from furniture to food grains has shocked us all. Yet, the question remains. Why do houses collapse this way? While the rain has played its part, there is also another aspect: many buildings do not adhere to the construction standards and regulations.…

55% of Mumbai’s population lives in slums, and is routinely excluded from urban planning. Dr Lalitha Kamath, an urban planning expert, has found that it is precisely by design that this structure is created and maintained. The State does not treat all residents of the city equally, and this is just another form of violence. Its instruments are the seemingly technical project and development plans. Lalitha is an associate professor at the Centre for Urban Policy and Governance, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. Her work includes Participolis: Consent and Contention in Neoliberal Urban Governance (2013) and the forthcoming…

Bengaluru is increasingly becoming a city with more roads and flyovers, and with less spaces for public interaction or informal encounters. As in other Indian cities, here too, administrators imagine a city that meets global standards of urban form and infrastructure. Whereas, at the neighbourhood level, people continue to nurture and sustain spaces like ashwath kattes (peepul tree shrines), informally generating community spaces. And these spaces - which assimilate the rural within the urban - survive even as government agencies have been rampantly usurping public spaces for various projects. There are two competing processes in city-making – one, from above,…

It was around 5 am on November 7th, Sunday, when VS Jayaraman was woken up by his brother, who stayed in the ground floor of their apartment. There was considerable commotion at their apartment complex during the early hours of that day. Water had entered all the flats in the ground floor of the building, which is located on Motilal street in T Nagar, as a result of the heavy rains and the subsequent flooding in Chennai through the night of November 6th and the early hours of November 7th. “We immediately notified the Corporation officials as well as the…

Mumbai is reported to have only 1.24 sqm open space per person. This includes gymkhanas, cemeteries, storm water drains, sewage treatment plans, etc, so even that paltry number is exaggerated. The areas coloured green in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)’s Development Plan 2034 to signify ‘open spaces’ are misleading, since many have buildings and slums in their place. According to a study done as part of the ‘Harita: The Green Footprint’ fellowship, the real figure is only around 1 sqm per person. The fellowship mapped and graded 500 parks in the city. The report concluded that only 18% of the…

On Friday, November 12, Citizen Matters hosted a webinar on fire safety in Mumbai’s high rises. Following a story that covered the unfortunate fire incident at the 60-storey Avighna Park in Lower Parel, 3 weeks ago, the panel sought to discuss fire safety in Mumbai’s buildings by including subsequent fire tragedies in the city in recent weeks.  The panel consisted of Hemant Parab, Chief Fire Officer, Mumbai Fire Brigade and Chandrashekhar Prabhu, an Indian politician, architect, professor, urban planner and management expert. Arathi Manay, community anchor at Citizen Matters Mumbai and an experienced market research professional, moderated the discussion.  Read…

Last year, controversy arose over the Karnataka government’s decision to create a ‘tree park’ in the 600 acre Turahalli Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Bengaluru. Protestors questioned the conversion of an existing forest into a ‘tree park’; asserting that the ‘tree park’ would resemble ‘horticulture parks’ with manicured lawns and ornamental plants and not real ‘forests’. The project was stopped temporarily. In mid-2021, walkers around the forest noticed signs of activity. Work on the ‘tree park’ had restarted without any consultations with citizen groups or locals. The forest department had built a park with statues of tigers, peacocks, bugs,…

[BBMP, in coordination with other government agencies, has initiated the K100 (Citizens’ Water Way) project to rejuvenate the stormwater drain network between Majestic and Bellandur lake. Mod Foundation, an urban action and research institute, has been working with these agencies to ensure the project’s goals are met, and is also facilitating the overall design concept. The author, who is part of the Mod Foundation, gives details of the project in this article.] There is growing awareness about the dire state of Bengaluru’s lakes, which has mobilised citizens, institutions and the government to take action. Storm water drains (SWDs) are a…