Bangalore Crumbling – An Environmental And Logistics Nightmare

Smart city is a nice slogan and something to aspire for as a vision, but right now what we need urgently is a nice city to live in where everyday is not a struggle, but a joy for all stakeholders.

Bangalore, once upon a time was a city famed for its gardens, greenery, lakes, quaint road names, wonderful climate and more laid back pace. Then it started earning more fame for being the IT city, the Silicon Valley of India, and a cosmopolitan culture driven by a huge talent pool consisting of people from all across the country .

It had everything going for it to be a truly world class “ SMART “ city given the high level of intellect, technology prowess, the diversity and energy of youth, the entrepreneurship hub it evolved into  and the desire of all Indians for a better standard of living and quality of life.

Somewhere along the way in the last 15 years, along with the IT boom , it metamorphosed into something that bears little resemblance to its earlier avatar, barring the one saving grace – the weather (thankfully that is one thing the planners cannot control much). But even that has got hit in more ways than one thanks to the unplanned and rapid expansion of the concrete jungle and the planned contraction of the green cover driven by human greed and compromises.

Today the city is creaking under its own weight – did the leadership see it coming or did they prefer the more typical approach – let’s take it as it comes and figure out something along the way and make merry while the ride lasts? When things go wrong, pass the buck to the previous government.

There are alarming signs of decay and some signs of progress but a balanced scorecard is sadly too heavily skewed towards the former. Time for the leadership to script a turnaround?

Some signs of the deep decay

• A 10 km ride can take over an hour in bumper to bumper traffic if one is lucky. I used to often do over 2 times that distance in an hour in Mumbai. And driving and parking are no longer enjoyable experiences.

• The tech companies that made Bangalore their home along with making it a home to tens of thousands did a great job in creating fancy campuses, generating employment and improving income levels . But this phenomenon also unleashed hundred of buses and thousands of cabs onto the ill equipped roads. And their very employees are the ones who spend 2 – 3 hours on the road daily soaking in the noise and the air pollution and trying to grab a wink  after  their stressful work. Do they ” really” care? Whitefield is a good example of lack of planning where service roads are good for off roading and enough to break back and cars !

• It remains an environmental nightmare when one considers the air pollution from the lakhs of vehicles,the slow moving traffic , the glass fronted air-conditioned offices, business parks and residential clusters with their huge gensets. Add to that the thousands of gensets across the city and the public transport and autos spewing  fumes which often goes unchecked. Even the PUC certification is suspicious.

• If you are traveling in an auto or a two wheeler on the road for an hour, over time it can knock off a few years from your life. Not forgetting the school kids in their buses and autos. Wonder what health consequences this can lead to as the generation crosses the coming decades!

• Lives are lost every other day more due to a number of roads having potholes along with poor lighting than due to bad driving. Is someone really bothered given that more often than not the riders or alcohol are blamed for crashing into medians or slipping on huge craters on ill lit roads?

• And yes, crossing roads here is an art as well as a test of guts and luck as pedestrians are not as important as vehicles. That is changing a bit now with construction of some over bridges and work on pavements after many lives lost and broken limbs.

• Environment friendly does not mean saving power by not having streetlights. There was one crowded road leading to an IT hub that was being widened for 2 years, and there were no street lights for 4 years . Who is accountable?

• Road widening is a classic example of shortsightedness. Often seen as a solution, it takes few years from planning to litigation to execution and by the time it is ready, it still is not enough for the increased vehicles. Then starts the next round of planning and messing up.

• Noise pollution rises during the peak hours as everyone believes that the vehicle in front will move only due to the honks from behind! And if there is an ambulance in the crowd, it sets of a frenzy of honking which is fine as people are at least trying to save someone. Wonder how many ambulances do not make it on time!

• Today this international city is in the news thanks to its frothing lake filled with chemicals, industrial waste and untreated sewage. And many other lakes that have shrunk or vanished when no one in authority really bothers, except for paying lip service. Lake facing apartments are not prized that much anymore since they are often breeding grounds for tiny insects that can cause havoc as is seen with the rising incidences of viral  fevers and sickness in the air.

• Bangalore even unofficially got a tag of being the garbage city with the villagers where dumping yards have been set up going up in arms leading to mini dumps in many corners of the city and a stray dog menace and infections. The quality of ground water on which most of the city depends on due to unplanned expansion remains a question mark. And also the quantity of water with borewells digging deeper. Will the next crisis be of water and health?

• And finally safety – is the city getting safer for the women, the elderly , the youngsters in schools ? Every other month the news talks about some incident or the other. Are we as citizens becoming numb and  immune and reacting only when something touches us personally?

Is there hope at the end of the tunnel? Or is the tunnel getting longer and the light at the end always some distance away?

The brighter side of the coin

There are good things happening too in the past decade on the infrastructure front, like the metro network spreading slow and steady, couple of great elevated roads, a great airport, more comfortable public transport, better cab services on call (driven by entrepreneurs), malls and entertainment centres , more roads planned with pavements where one can walk on without falling down (which hopefully will not get dug up by one agency after the other), online payments of government utility bills, parks and some roads on Sundays to help citizens and pets to peacefully walk, loiter or cycle and experience a lifestyle that is otherwise alien .

Phew! That is some breath of fresh air and hope. The good thing is that in all these the intentions are good and citizen participation as an influential factor is up, but the speed and costs usually overrun and execution often falters. But the overall matrix of city development is good enough to compensate. Seems far too skewed at this point of time.

Call For Action From These Leadership Lessons

We need the city leaders, planners, movers and influencers learn from these mishaps, stand up for the common man and take corrective measures that can be measured, analysed and improved. Some thoughts

1. Move from knee jerk quick fixes to a more proactive and longer term planning be it on road quality, road widening, flyovers, garbage management or mass transport related solutions.

2. Have clarity on project and cost deadlines that have the same seriousness that an organization and leaders within that would adhere to. Also the system must penalise or blacklist non performers and defaulters who mess around .

3. Ensure cross department and agency  coordination, better project management and more accountability along with motivating the foot soldiers to rise and make things happen . We saw that with the Delhi metro project driven by a no nonsense leader. We need more Shreedharans here!  Or a Minister for Bangalore who is also no nonsense and determined to make a difference. This can be a classic turn around story.

4. Get  some of the IT biggies and mid sized firms  to stand up and adopt large earmarked 3- 5 km areas outside their campuses and give back by working with authorities to solve some of the infrastructure problems they created.

5. Use the creative energy and technology prowess and apps that help employees work from home a lot more, work in virtual teams, car pool, depend more on ecommerce for shopping of more items, improve traffic management, save power and a host of other citizen friendly initiatives that improve quality of life and productivity. Who wants to waste 3 hours of life daily on the useless roads and add to their stress levels?

6. Enforce tougher laws on polluting vehicles, industries, establishments, better lake protection, power wastages, and encourage more use of  public transport, more car free days over weekends and other citizen friendly initiatives.

7. Increased involvement of IT companies, citizens, resident welfare associations, work groups, think tanks and activists to partner with the government more readily to help better manage garbage, water and air/noise pollution in a more environment friendly way.

8. See more visible and genuine openness from the authorities to take citizens silent sufferings more seriously, engage more and make this a commitment to a better quality of life .

Smart city is a nice slogan and something to aspire for as a vision, but right now what  we need urgently is a nice city to live in where everyday is not a struggle, but a joy for all stakeholders.

Originally posted here.