The state government is doing a rethink on the Transfer of Development rights (TDR) scheme and announced a panel last week to be led by ABIDE-member Dr A Ravindra, according to the DNA. A public workshop is also going to held soon. This follows much citizen angst and resentment about roadwidening and BBMP's offering of TDR as compensation. (ABIDE is the chief minister's task force - Agenda for Bengaluru Infrastructure Development)

This is a welcome move. Citizens will hopefully find their voices heard at this meeting.

But the real issue is not TDR, as much as the state government may now concede or may want to you to think they have conceded. Even if the TDR scheme was made more amenable, roadwidening is not going to be the solution to easing traffic.

The issue is growth. Proposing to widen roads without at the same time settling on a…

Read More

Santosh Hegde's resignation, Road widening distress, auto rickshaws refusing rides and tampering meters: push Bangaloreans hard enough and they will hit back.

Read More

Transfer. A piece of paper with an order written on it. In the stroke of a pen, Bharat Lal Meena was lifted from the top of BBMP and placed atop the BDA. Another stroke, and BDA Commissioner H Siddaiah takes his place.

But why were they transferred? No reasons given.

These are top officials with responsibilities. Their current roles have a relevance and power that citizens understand. The same state government that seeks so much publicity for its much acclaimed accomplishments (see the posters of B S Yeddyurappa and R Ashoka on Volvo buses this week), does not even bother to issue a press release.

People have a right to know. So tell them. That is all. Set an example, a precedent for other governments to follow.

The result of not being open? All kinds of speculation in the daily newspapers on Thursday July 1st, the day after. Some reports wonder if MLAs…

Read More

It's a classic case of putting cart before the horse and getting away with it. The Jayanagar Traffic and Transit Management Centre - a fancy name for a new bus stand located in a multi-storey building - was inaugurated in August 2009. The cost was around Rs.12 crores. It was a classic sarkari ceremony with the chief minister cutting the ribbon, transport minister attending, and the works. The media was happy to report it too.

The centre has space for offices in the second and third floors and a swanky terrace parking lot for the public on the fourth level. They forgot one thing - no elevator. Yet, the contract for the terrace parking lot was given in late 2009. See the brief report on page 5, as well a more detailed story online.

What's worse is this: when Citizen Matters asked a BMTC official why the elevator was not in…

Read More

Film actress Ramya has come out in favour of extending deadlines of restaurants and pubs to 2 am (DNA, May 20). Minister Renukacharya raised the issue this year. Extending pub deadlines is one regular topic that comes up every year.

But does rest of Bangalore have to shut shop so early?

Nothing is open post dinner here! Outsiders term this a sleepy city, where nothing opens before 10 am and everybody closes by 8 pm.

Retailers may say there is no crowd after 9 pm. But there are more and more working-couple families who will find it convenient to shop late. They are always rushing to office, rushing back and dropping/picking up children from school or tuition classes. For them, weekday evening or weekend shopping becomes a chore. Parking spots are full, shops are crowded, the checkout lines are long.

Big retailers and shops in shopping complexes must experiment with later timings. Keeping…

Read More

Once upon a time, Bengaluru had over a 100 lakes, of which many were used for water supply. Other lakes fed groundwater, which was again used for fetching drinking water through wells.

And then the city grew, first slowly, and then faster. Amenities were needed. Housing was critical. The city's growth skyrocketed in the last two decades as the IT revolution came in. Apartments mushroomed.

With all this came piped water supply from the Cauvery, a 100 kms away. Lakes were quickly forgotten, by everyone - from politicians to citizens.

Land became precious. It turned into gold. Everyone, literally everyone - politicians, bureaucrats, builders and citizens capitalised on this.

Scores of the city's lakes gave way to colleges, sports stadia, playgrounds, markets, golf courses, bus stations, and most importantly residential layouts. Remember Sampangi lake? It changed to Kanteerava Sports Complex.

Likewise Shoolay lake,…

Read More

The election season that concluded in Bengaluru had some very well attended debates and interactions. That's good news. But it also exposed one key reality that has hardly received attention.

At these meetings, citizens communicated in ways that made it very difficult for the organisers to give a fair chance for everyone present to engage the panelists.

At Q&A time, it is expected that citizens keep to their time allotted (usually a minute or so) and frame crisp questions for the panelists. This protocol is not outlandish, and is required. One, organisers understandably want as many people as possible to have a chance to raise questions. Otherwise the most articulate or the loudest tend to dominate these events. Second a single, clear question forces the candidate respond only to that, and the audience then has a chance to assess.

Here is what actually happened in a number of debates and election interactions -…

Read More

For over ten days now, Citizen Matters has followed the hectic election campaigns of candidates around the city. A mixed reality has already come out from our talking to candidates, their campaigners and voters. Some, for e.g. in Koramangala ward, have told us this: historically middle and high income groups (‘English-educated avaru’) won’t come out and vote on election day, so we cannot count on them for actually winning the race. We’ll stick to the ‘slums’.

Others have done the opposite. Depending on the ward itself, many mainline party candidates have taken out door-to-door campaigns canvassing in higher income neighbourhoods and apartments. Their visits may only have been for a momentary ‘namaskaara’ and not necessarily to ‘sit down and discuss testy issues’. Yet, it indicates that they are not taking a chance with the better-off’s presumed nonparticipation this time.

Furthermore, in specific wards where reformist party candidates are campaigning in particular,…

Read More

Citizen Matters is organising two election debates/meet-the-candidates interactions in your area - one for BTM Ward (176) and one for JP Nagar ward (177). Both events will happen on the weekend of March 20-21.

March 28, will be a historic day for both Bengaluru and the High Court of Karnataka.

For 3 1/2 years, the city did not have its own government and that will soon change. If the High Court had not put its foot down repeatedly, we may have seen even more postponements.

For a number of reasons this election may turn out to be a watershed in city politics.

First, in 2010, Bengaluru is a vastly grown and messed-up city compared to 2001 when the last elections were held. Problems of all kinds - water supply, transportation, encroachment of open spaces - have multiplied, even as elite citizen assertiveness has risen, both on the net and…

Read More

The episode at Carlton Towers could have happened anywhere in the city. The fire of 23rd February claimed nine and many more were hurt. The question of plan permissions, collusion, bye-law and safety violations and more are all being discussed in the media.

One of the points being made by authorities (especially the BBMP) now, is that they cannot be blamed if builders and owners violate plan sanctions after occupancy certificates are issued.

Really? Let's take a closer look at how plenty of wrongdoing happens during the plan approval process itself, i.e. before buildings are constructed and occupied. 

Some years ago, citizens discovered a major case of building plan and fire safety code violations for an building in Jayanagar 1st block. But it took until December 2009 for this case to be completely exposed for what it is really is: several officials involved were batting for violator all the way.…

Read More

Citizens living within city limits often castigate BBMP and other local authorities for long delayed public works and amenities. The JP Nagar underpass is a classic case of BBMP's inability to fix what has gone wrong and reach the finish line.

But it needs to go on record that India's transportation giant, Indian Railways, arguably with far greater resources and expertise at its disposal, has recently been responsible for a disastrous project in Northeast Bangalore.

In response to a gridlocked railway level crossing at the Whitefield Railway Station in Kadugodi, the Railways responded in 2006 with an overbridge contract. The Railways runs one of the largest and busiest rail networks in the world, with a broad guage length of over 66,000 kms. For the Railways, a 42-metre overbridge over 25000-volt electrified lines ought to have been doable.

Not exactly. Enter 2010, both ramps of bridge terminate in thin air with an empty…

Read More

As we begin the New Year with our 25th issue, it's time to celebrate as well as reflect. The journey thus far has been enjoyable and rewarding. We have received praise from Bangaloreans, as well as those elsewhere.  With recognition by Mint Business newspaper in 2008 and BBC in 2009, we have been accepted by citizens as well as other media as a credible source of pathbreaking local journalism.

Nevertheless challenges remain. As we endeavour to inform, interest, and involve, we too encounter apathy and stonewalling.  Unhelpful government officials, unprofessional ministers and MLAs and even unethical community groups are part of a day’s work.

A few weeks back, it was my pleasure to attend the monthly meeting of Manjari Ladies Association based in JP Nagar, as their special guest. The members were gracious and hospitable. Many of them shared their stories about careless neighbours dumping garbage and callous officials not heeding complaints.…

Read More

"Who are these people, these former IAS officers and all, to compare London to Bangalore and propose these changes?"  he thundered on the phone. His tone and outburst were astounding, and for a moment it appeared that he had mistaken the Citizen Matters editor for someone else. "What is the paristhithi in Bangalore?" he then shot off, implying that Bengaluru was simply not London.

The speaker was Jayanagar MLA B N Vijaykumar. Citizen Matters had asked him what he thought of ABIDE's proposal to have direct elections from neighbourhoods into ward committees, which was being vetted by his party colleagues in the state cabinet for passage as law. Clearly, Vijaykumar was a making a not-so-veiled reference to former state chief secretary Dr A Ravindra, member of ABIDE who has been pushing for decentralisation reforms for Bangalore along with his colleagues.

For those less familiar, ABIDE is the chief minister's own committee created…

Read More

Finally, elections to the Bengaluru council are to be announced soon. Roughly half the city's 198 wards have been reserved (for BC, SC, ST and women). The state election commission is expected to announce the dates by next week.

Soon, and with a 'municipal' intensity, the usual election campaigning will begin  -- party ticket quarrels, rebels turning independents, the race to nominations, disclosure affidavits and the blaring of loudspeakers in our streets as campaigning culminates.

For local elections, turnout has historically been around 50 per cent, and it's usually the urban poor who have gone out to vote. The middle and upper income groups have largely kept away. Mainstream political parties -- Congress, BJP and JD(S) in Karnataka - have mastered the art of cobbling together victories with the usual methods of courting slum-dwellers.

So what could be different this time? One key fact: the margin of many victories in the last council…

Read More

Transport. Transport offers mobility. From mobility comes access. Access to work, socials, leisure, everything. Transport systems even shape our cities.

For years now, transport in Bengaluru has been in a state of breakdown. Our roads are flooded disproportionately with cars and two-wheelers which compete for every inch of space with the buses that carry the majority.

We've all become weary travellers. It is now not uncommon to put off a jaunt to meet someone or attend a function unless its critical or something we cannot wriggle out of. Social connections are being rewired to lessen impact.

Adding to this is the latest pressing problem of humanity, climate change. Transport systems account for between 20 per cent and 25 per cent of world energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions, says the London-based World Energy Council. Greenhouse gas emissions from transport are increasing at a faster rate than any other energy-using sector, says the Nobel…

Read More

We live in times of massive traffic pileups on our roads and the stress that comes from simply watching long lines of vehicles stopped at intersections. With the ever increasing pressure on local authorities to relieve congestion, how did it come to pass that the BBMP-proposed link road connecting the Yeshwanthpur-Yelahanka artery to NH 7 (Bellary Road) resulted in a major litigation in the High Court?

Over 4 kms of the proposed link road is to be laid through forestland inside the University of Agricultural Sciences’ GKVK campus in northern Bengaluru. The forestland itself was granted to the university by an Act of the state legislature in the 60s, attached with preconditions of preservation.

At stake are over 3500 trees, some of which are wild varieties of specially bred fruit trees part of the university’s research, called the germplasm bank. Not surprisingly, the University’s Board of Regents did not initially permit…

Read More

There is a funny thing about ill-conceived policy. The longer it is accepted by the people, the harder it becomes to reverse course later. The destination signboards on Bengaluru’s ‘sada’ buses, run by the public-sector BMTC have been Kannada-only for along time. English is not used.

Citizen Matters asked the state government’s transport minister R Ashoka about this and he said that only Kannada people use these buses and when reminded that this was a multicultural city, he said, “What do I do?”. But bus drivers, conductors and commuters themselves are not opposed to bilingual signboards -- don’t miss our special report.

Surely our transport minister knows better. Is Bengaluru so different in the cultural and social composition of its commuters compared to Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, and host of other cities? No. So why would R Ashoka, the savvy politician, prefer to take a line like this?

Before we go further, it is…

Read More

B S Yeddyurappa is a chief minister who struck out and created history of sorts recently, something few state chief ministers have managed to do. Working with his counterpart in Tamilnadu, he oversaw the long-pending unveiling of the Tamil poet-saint’s Thiruvalluvar statue in Bengaluru.

This is not as easy as it may seem. Getting past strained ethnic tensions is fraught with risks anywhere in the world. In 1991 when the statue was originally due for unveiling, protests built up and tensions coincided with riots triggered by the Cauvery dispute. Kannada-Tamil tensions in Bengaluru have always simmered below the otherwise normal-seeming buzz of daily city life. Stoking it has been easy for everyone from unruly mobs to sanghas to political parties.

Even this time, there was steep opposition from some quarters and the threat of violence was real. Yeddyurappa showed statesman-like qualities when he took political parties into confidence early-on to pave the…

Read More

Citizens in JP Nagar and BTM Layout have been rankled recently when red colour signs showed up on compound walls and entrances of homes and shops. The signs indicated that 7-8 metres of their property is going to acquired for yet another roadwidening project.

Last month, the BBMP decided it was going to widen the 14.5 kms-stretch from Silkboard (Hosur Road) through BTM Layout and JP Nagar to Mysore Road.

Do not miss our exclusive story for more on this and what citizens and shopkeepers are doing to protect their interests. What will happen over the next few months is unclear, but the BBMP says it is simply following Bengaluru's Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP 2005-15) which designated this road for expansion.

Is it all that simple? Turn back to some recent history. The current CDP was drafted in 2005, and before the state government put its approval in June 2007, it went…

Read More

Two weeks ago, on a Saturday afternoon as another hectic week at Citizen Matters had wound down, we received a phone call from one Mr G (name held back) asking us whether we could distribute the Citizen Matters print magazine in the Vijaynagar area of the city. He spoke in fluent Kannada and English, and from his voice it seemed he was in his late forties. At first it was not clear why we must take him seriously, since the only thing he would give away about himself was a first name, and that he was an ‘IT consultant’.

Let’s cut to the chase: Mr G, it turned out, was not a regular ‘IT consultant’. He was representing a political party and candidate for the assembly bye-election in Vijayanagar constituency. He was urging us to launch an edition of Citizen Matters with his candidate on the cover page in that…

Read More