Bengaluru: Earlier in September, a 26-year-old woman riding pillion with her husband died when the motorbike hit a pothole. The case drew national attention, putting Bengaluru in the news once more, for a problem that all of us have been screaming ourselves hoarse over for years. Potholes appear and are fixed until they reappear and the trouble starts all over again. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Bengaluru District in-charge Minister Ramalinga Reddy are personally overseeing the fixing of potholes, which, ideally, should be handled by the BBMP, the guardian of the city.This is where things stand and they all point at one thing – an abysmal lack of scientific planning.
Shockingly, Bengaluru is the only city without a single urban planner! Believe it or not, the Palike doesn’t have a single certified town planner — the department itself, which is highly sought after, comprises engineers. The duty of the town planning department is to study maps and to plan the architecture of the city, but how can that happen without a single qualified person at the drawing board? The department is very popular among officials because bribes flow freely — all sanctions come from here. I can walk in there with a plan that is fully compliant with all guidelines, but I’d still have to empty out my pockets for an approval.
Urban planning is a large umbrella, so let’s look at roads. Apart from the TenderSure projects, not a single road is designed according to a concrete plan. For instance, when a road is being made and a feature needs to be placed at an exact location, there is no plan for that. So they do it wrong, then redo it and still manage to leave the actual problem unsolved. Money is spent each time a mistake needs rectifying and therefore, the end result simply doesn't coincide with the expense.
TenderSure, which was done by a group of concerned citizens, began with a solid plan. Huge money was spent in getting the design together and despite heavy opposition, there was nothing naysayers could do. There is still talk of the pavements being too wide and the roads too narrow, but the actual documents will show you that not a single road has been made smaller. Replicating this design in other parts of the city will be much easier now, because the bedrock design is in place and only needs to be implemented with minor changes. It goes to show that if you have a well-designed project, no amount of corruption or opposition can stand in your way.
Needless to say, TenderSure is an exception to the rule. It is the only project that comes with some amount of institutional memory. In other cases, designs and plans reside in the minds of our engineers, there’s nothing solid for authorities to go by every time power changes hands. The city is being built on an ad hoc basis!
The Traffic Engineering Cell has its role to play, but this is mainly to do with placing junctions and medians. The median itself will be built wrong, but the reason for putting it there in the first place is wrong. Then, they come and remove the median. This is how things work.
Today, I’m on Whatsapp, along with the MDs of Bescom and BMTC and the BBMP Commissioner as well. Around 50 pictures pointing out problems are posted every day and departments communicate with each other. I was even joking about how a case study needs to be written on using Whatsapp for public management! If this was done the regular way, a problem will be identified by, say, the BBMP. The Palike will then send a letter to the concerned department, which will take some time to reach them. Then, the project is put on hold for three years.
BBMP Commissioner G. Kumar Naik wrote to me a few days ago, saying that he has to install pedestrian crossings in signal-free corridors. This was proposed some time ago, but never implemented, so there is no design or planning to fall back on. Still, he will face the flack if it is not done. The reason for potholes reappearing is drains that are blocked beneath them. Why isn’t this dealt with? Our engineers are failing us. Our ministers do their bit, but there is no way, really, to defend the gross mismanagement that has taken place in the name of town planning.
The elevated road project, which is taking off now, was proposed in 2010. Signal free corridors were first discussed in 2013. Work on both began only in 2015 and will take another five years to complete. A job that should have been done by our fabled town planning department is being handled by private individuals. What then, is our town planning department doing? Have we really sunk so low that our Chief Minister needs to personally oversee the filling of potholes? That too, so no more lives are lost?
(The writer is an urban expert)
