Hello 2016. Over the next three days, Deccan Chronicle will look at Bengaluru’s problems and will touchbase with some of the experts to find solutions to these issues through its series — Master Plan 2016. To transform Bengaluru into a truly egalitarian city, governance should be made participatory. Citizens must be involved in finding and implementing solutions that are acceptable to all. Will we see participatory governance take root in 2016?
My vision for Bengaluru is, quite simply, an egalitarian city, where various constituencies of people, rich or poor, all live harmoniously in the true-blue spirit of Bengaluru. Our spirit is a very accommodating one, embodied beautifully in our own terminology: Swalpa adjust maadi! Egalitarianism is a macro vision, within which an auto driver is no different from a high-level corporate honcho. Under this umbrella, however, are several verticals.
Bengaluru, I have always maintained, is a basic city with basic problems. We are not as advanced as Singapore, our needs are at the ground level - water, air pollution, garbage and roads. I would like to see a participative mechanism for Bengaluru where the citizen participates actively with the government to take care of these very basic problems. By that, I mean a system of wardens for solid waste management and air quality, where citizens participate equally with governance.
We are a mega city as such, have problems on a mega scale. Governance, unfortunately, cannot be left to the government. Garbage as an issue is simply too large and too important to be left solely in the hands of our authorities. My vision for this is a single line: Garbage is your kid. You made it, manage it. That's very important. Here, waste is treated like an orphan. We create it and expect it to be dumped in landfills like Mandur, Mavallipura and various other locations. However, solid waste management cannot be outsourced.
The second aspect is air pollution. We're not shouting about it yet, but give it a couple of years and the quality of the air we breathe will deteriorate more and more. One of the biggest reasons is traffic, of course, contributing to about seven percent of the problem. The other large contributor is public fires. Garbage, leaves and all sorts of things are burned, on the streets and the pavements. People believe that the best way to dispose of dry leaves is to burn them. There is an Airforce colony on Old Airport Road that does this all the time. What we need is zero tolerance. If you happen to catch sight of a small fire in a public place, whether it is by a pourakarmika attached to the BBMP or in an Airforce Colony - DO something about it. There should be a PIL being fought against these people. These are the enemies of good air quality and I do believe also that political parties should rise to the occasion. I would tell our politicians that a way to a man's vote is through his lungs!
Bengaluru was once a very lung-friendly city and our biggest enemy is not cigarettes, it is the smoke we breathe in when trash is burned. The innocent audience is hit hardest - the children and those with respiratory ailments that will be offset by the smoke. Bengaluru is a pollen city for starters, so traffic and public fires aren't doing us any favours.
Water is another talked-about issue, but fortuantely for us, our water-table seems reasonably okay at this point of time. However, the problem is the contamination of good water with bad. We have had lakes catching fire and methane being exuded in a number of places, which are, ultimately affecting our artesian wells.
Talking about citizen participation is all very well, but how do we get things done? Resident Welfare Associations have great potential to work in close proximity with civic bodies. The city is divided into wards, each of which has a detailed mechanism for governance. RWAs should be given more authority and power - officially - to sort out hyper local issues. The application of funds is another area that needs looking into - RWAs should work actively with local governing bodies to apply for funds and ensure that they are used well.
Transparency in the utlisation of funds will give people in respective wards more faith in the fact that things are happening. Accountability is crucial and must be demanded. Cities, unfortunately, don't have Panchayats, only wards. And only politicians know what happens in this wards. It was Gandhi who first propagated the idea of the Gram Swaraj - self governance in villages. The essence of this - decentralised, citizen-intensive government - can be applied in cities too, through the RWAs. People must particpate in governance every week, not once in five years when they step out to vote. We vote for our corporators and our MLAs and then assume our job is done. As we can see now, it simply doesn't work that way. Managing a ward, in terms of solid waste management, roads, water or air pollution - is a continuous process and it is God's work. Every day is a new day.
(The author is a specialist in brand and business strategy.)
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