Infrastructure

The decision of Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) to relocate the Cantonment Metro station has drawn flak from citizens. Why has this become such a big issue? The answer is something every urban transport planner will appreciate, every concerned citizen will appreciate, and every visionary will appreciate. Those who don’t, will appreciate it the moment they become aware of its implications in their daily lives. The answer is, integration. What went wrong? Metro is here for the next several decades from now–our next few generations will use the Metro to move around this sprawling, ever-expanding city. If Metro is…

I write this after a recent visit to the Animal Birth Control Centre on Basin Bridge Road run by the Corporation of Chennai. The official mandate of the pound is to catch our stray dogs based on regular inspection and specific complaints from the public, sterilize and immunize them against rabies and then release them in the same area where they were caught as per Animal Birth Control Rules. However, my visit has left me with such heart-breaking sights and experience, that I feel responsible to do all that is needed to relieve the dogs in the pound from the…

Do you remember the famous wedding video invite with a LED display which had the family lip-syncing to a choreographed welcome song and dance? Ever wondered what happened to the card after the wedding? This was the storyline for the Street play performed by Kaledio to raise awareness on e-waste.  How long does anyone hang on to an invite that has run out of battery? It goes in the garbage. And the performers went on to explain the hazards of e-waste. E-waste is extremely harmful to both human and environmental health. The toxic elements that e-waste contains include chromium, lead,…

It has been six months since separate dry waste collection started in Bellandur ward. But the service provider who has collected dry waste for last six months has not been paid. In February, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) handed over the Dry Waste Collection Centre (DWCC) in both Doddakannelli and Kodathi dry waste collection centers in Bellandur ward (ward number 150), to Mr Manjunath, who is into dry waste business. In April 2017, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) gave the Memorandum of Understanding, Memorandum of Agreement and the work order to him, that allowed him to collect dry…

Property buyers often fall victim to unscrupulous real estate developers; hence there is a need for real estate development to be regulated. This is what the Real Estate Regulatory Act (RERA) intends to do. On Saturday, 19th August 2017, I attended an interactive Question and Answer session on RERA. IAS Officer Kapil Mohan, the Principal Secretary, Housing Board, Government of Karnataka, and also Interim Authority of RERA, was part of the panel. The event was organised by the National Real Estate Development Council (NAREDCO), Karnataka chapter, on  the Karnataka State Billiards Association premises. It was attended by many real estate…

Karnataka Composting Development Corporation (KCDC) in HSR Layout, Bengaluru, is in news yet again. Residents are demanding that the government: 1. Shift the existing plant immediately to a remote and unpopulated location outside the city limits, as all other options to control the odour from the plant have failed 2. Limit the current intake of the wet waste to 70 tonnes as an interim measure to reduce the smell until plant shifts out to remote location. 3. Clear the Refuse-Derived Fuel backlog, release the encroached land and restores the ecosystem of the lake as per the NGT norms. Through an…

I am no stranger to metro systems. I’ve up hiked the spiral staircases of Paris’ metro, impatiently waited in a dark tunnel when my line broke down while on the London Tube, poured buckets of sweat in the graffiti adorned underground train to Rome’s neighboring beach town, fervently watched street performers in the bowels of Washington D.C.’s network of underground metro tunnels and have spent much of my time riding my own city’s eccentrically named Seattle Link Light rail through canopies of tree cover and rain specked windows. I have traveled some of the biggest cities of the world on…

Greenpeace India recently launched its Waste To Food campaign to create awareness about segregation of waste and composting of organic matter among the citizens of Bengaluru. With the population of nearly 10 million, Bengaluru produces between 3,000 tonnes to 5,000 tonnes of garbage every day of which around 60 percent is  organic waste. To kickstart the campaign, activists from Greenpeace India placed placards with the message 'Waste To Food'  at five locations across the city where unsegregated garbage is being dumped unceremoniously at public spaces. “The city deserves better, and the authorities need to pay immediate attention. While there are…

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has written to the Union Ministry of Urban Development about having only Kannada and English signages in Namma Metro, based on the state’s two language policy. .@CMofKarnataka has written a letter to Union Minister @nstomar saying BMRCL would be asked to redesign Name Boards etc without Hindi Script pic.twitter.com/HSD5ujtQ8k — GoK Updates (@GOKUpdates) July 28, 2017 So after a sustained #nammametrohindibeda campaign online that lasted over a month, it looks like Hindi signages will have to go. BMRCL has asked the state government’s permission to change the boards. The Kannada Development Authority (KDA) wrested with the responsibility of…

Wrong information is being put out on the official Metropolitan Transport Corporation of Chennai MTC website, www.mtcbus.org, on the routes that it operates. The website itself is unfriendly and the design is years old. While MTC operates several ‘small bus’ routes, it has wrongly prefixed regular routes with S in the database, while not giving information on Small Bus routes. For example, the regular route 7E is prefixed as S07E from Broadway to Ambattur Estate. S26 has been listed as if it is a small bus, when in fact it is route 26, from Broadway to Iyyappanthangal. Such wrong information given…