Infrastructure

Apart from the traffic snarls in Chikkallasandra, the residents of this area are exposed to another hazard. Garbage collected from nearby localities are sorted out daily on a bridge built over an open drain right on the 18th Main Road, about 100 yards from the Chikkallasandra junction. This route is extremely busy as it is the shortest way from junction to Devegowda petrol bunk junction.Pic: S Srinivasan After collecting garbage from the nearby localities using hand carts and three-wheeler vehicles, the paurakarmikas dump it on the side of the bridge. They sort out the garbage before loading it into the…

S Vishwanath is a pioneer in rainwater harvesting. He is the founder of Rainwater Club, a city-based group that promotes and provides information on rainwater harvesting. Vishwanath has been working in the areas of urban planning, ecological architecture and water management for the past 25 years. Rainwater Club was one of the winners of the 2009 Namma Bengaluru Awards. In this interview with Citizen Matters, Vishwanath speaks about the desperate water scene in the city and suggests what immediate measures can be taken to address the issue of shortage.S Vishwanath, Rainwater Club. Pic: Vaishnavi Vittal When you hear of water…

Nitin Dubey had never been so scared in his life. As he watched the deadly smoke engulf the top two floors of Carlton Tower in Bangalore, he could see people leaning out of windows trying to escape the blinding smoke and hear their desperate screams for help. He was acutely aware that he could very well become one of the victims, being trapped with them, but somehow he had been spared their fate. One of his colleagues had not been so lucky. By the time the fire was extinguished nine people were dead, some asphyxiated and some having jumped to…

"The next world war will be over water" - Ismail Serageldin, former Vice President of the World Bank. As with any problem, the proper way to manage water is to adopt a holistic approach along the lines of reduce, reuse and recycle and ensure active participation by both individual residents as well as the Apartment Owners Associations. The Central Public Health and Environmental Engineering Organisation (CPHEEO) guidelines state that the average water consumption per person, in megacities is 150 liters per day (lpd). For an average household of 4 persons, that works out to 600 lpd. Try to figure out…

The dusty haze of construction, ubiquitous green signs and makeshift shacks with ‘namma metro', a clear view of a once tree-lined street, half demolished buildings, newly asphalted road - metro construction work is in full swing on Mahakavi Kuvempu Road (MKK Road) in north-west Bangalore. Listen to Citizen Matters audio story in English and Kannada (6 1/2 mins) Citizen Matters Podcasts Download Podcast Subscribe to podcasts What are Podcasts?Podcasts are audio files you can listen to whenever you want. You can subscribe to our podcast feed using a jukebox tool (like Apple's iTunes) so that your computer automatically downloads it…

The residents of Kaverinagar in North Bangalore have not received water from the BWSSB for about two years now. But bills from the water board have been delivered regularly. The only relief they have now is because of one of their neighbours Victoria who took it upon herself to help her neighbours by distributing water freely from her borewell.A kilo litre (1000 litres) of water costs the BWSSB Rs 34, including production, distribution and so on. An average consumer receives this water at a highly subsidised rate, paying around Rs 18 per kilo litre. It's those who purchase them through…

For a mathematician who has been honoured with the Padmabhushan and made a fellow of the Royal Society, Professor Narasimhan made one small wrong calculation on the morning of Monday, December 14th, 2009.Walking down the narrow sidewalk along Sanjaynagar main Road, he tried to get past a large advertisement board balanced on top of a massive slab of concrete placed in the middle of the pavement by a newly opened grocery store. The narrow sidewalk along Sanjaynagar main Road. Pic: Sakuntala Narasimhan. With barely enough space on either side of the concrete slab for walking past, his foot got caught…

Sixty-nine year old A N Vittal, a resident of Kammanahalli in Bangalore East, has frequented the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) office several times in the past one year. Despite several phone calls, e-mails and hand-written letters to the concerned officials at the BWSSB including the Chairman and Public Relations Officer (PRO), the water problem in his area persists. “Cauvery water supply through the tap has completely stopped”, he says. But Assistant Executive Engineer N Malla Reddy has given Vittal and his neighbours a temporary solution to the problem. “He said, if water is not coming, you call…

Responses to the new tenders issued by the South Western Railways for completion of the Whitefield bridge project will be opened in the third week of this month, says a top official at the Railways.In yet another twist to the long saga, Railways had terminated its contract last month with Soham Engineering Constructions, the Hyderabad-based firm that had been struggling to complete the bridge. Soham had been citing a cash flow crunch, but technical issues had caused the delay as well. One of the two ramps biting thin air at the railway intersection. Pic: Subramaniam Vincent. The source at the…

Most of us dutifully place the garbage bag outside the front door every morning or night and rush back in to line the dustbin with a fresh plastic bag. With this, we think we have done our job with waste disposal and the rest is a headache better dealt by the local municipality. Later in the day, when we see overflowing bins, garbage strewn all over the roads and pavements, we criticise the corrupt bureaucracy without losing an instant. It doesn’t even cross our minds that we too are to be blamed for the sordid state of affairs. Digest this:…