Can you get me back my Garden City? Counter Attack on Bangalore Haters
Written by Prashanth on May 4, 2008 – 11:19 pm -Clean & green, called as Garden City, the name was well kept because it had lot of trees & parks. Roads were calm, environmental conditions were superb to live here. Anyone who fetched more than 6k salary was considered great & was able to have a peaceful living out of it. We were getting Kaveri water on daily basis, we used to play cricket, lagori on calm roads. Commutation was not at all a problem, BMTC buses were not so crowded, even my grandfather/grandmother were able to come in BMTC buses. Rikshaw walas were coming to any place you ask, in fact they were fighting among themselves to get customers.
But what’s now? Trees are cut for widening roads, for metro project, for huge apartments. Forget about cricket on road, there’s not enough space on road for vehicles. Cost of living has risen drastically, it’s hard to survive here with salary/income less than 12k. We are struggling for water, BMTC buses are heavily crowded which even I am not able to catch. Since demand for Rikshaws increased they are in demanding position, asking you more fare.
Entry of IT made drastic changes to Bangalore. It has become a completely unplanned city. And I really don’t have any blame on government. If suddenly people from all over country started pouring into a small city, how anyone can manage? Prasad of NDTV said in one of the discussions, Government have to approve each & every company to setup their centers here, that’s where government needs to play a role. But my question is if Bangalore doesn’t have good infrastructure why IT companies are coming here. Why can’t they go to Delhi, Bhuvaneshwar or any other cities if they can provide better infrastructure? This is a straight question to all people who blame on infrastructure in Bangalore.
IT people have their blogs to speak & media too is giving more interest to hear from them. And these folks are using these mediums to complain about infrastructure & traffic. Anyone even thought of Non-IT people in Bangalore? I know lakhs of people in Bangalore still depend on other industries. There are thousands of people near my house who work at garment industry, who hardly fetch around 3.5k per month. These people are struggling for food & cloth, nobody hears them & they don’t have any effective medium to express. But more importance is given to traffic as these IT people’s 6 lakh car has to travel smoothly!
Take this bloody IT city trademark out of Bangalore. I want my garden city back (as in paragraph 1!). Push all these IT companies to wherever you want, Delhi, Mumbai, Bhuvaneshwar….anywhere. I am ready to come there to work, retaining my city clean & green here! I will try to learn oria or any local language instead of asking them to change the board to English, I am ready to pay extra bucks to Rikshwala if they demand, & finally I will not blame on infrastructure there. I will try to adjust myself to the system instead of trying to change the whole system.
Tags: Bangalore, Infrastructure, Living, Traffic
Posted in Bangalore, Infrastructure, Traffic, life |
By Anand Muthu on May 7, 2008 | Reply
We can’t blame IT or other industry extensively for this issue. It’s the government which should have planned accordingly. If we have a proper administration in Karnataka, they could have planned for this before 2001. Since then IT has a growth in India especially in cities bangalore/chennai/pune. I have heard that Banglaore is still having the same infrastructure and administration which it had in 90’s. Also you must broaden you view over INDIA. Do you know what is the revenue Bangalore is getting in a year? its 31000 crores. Why can’t they use this and plan the city well? [ Still it has a small railway station ]. If you think, ITs were your main remorsable concern, why don’t they(goverment) plan to keep the companies(including all the small scall industries) in the out-skirts of bangalore?
By Raghu on Jun 19, 2008 | Reply
There are various aspects to your case here.
1. Blaming IT for bangalores decline(if there is really) is absolute nonsense. Every city needs to grow and modernise. IT has bought that into the city. If anything has to be blamed it is the people from outside bangalore who come and settle here.
No doubt India is a democratic country but to stay in a city and criticise it without actually intending to improve it is unpardonable.. Whether any one cries or shouts, the truth still remains that bangalore was the first city in India to bring in the IT culture. We have been hearing this ..”Is bangalore declining, we will overtake bangalore for about 10 years now.”
And what ae we really complaining about. I have been to bangalore, and the number og grade seperators, underpasses and flyovers I saw were amazing. The state of roads is surely by any stretch of imgination much better than what is here in pune(Nagar road which is one of the better roads is a nightmare in pune, MG road is always crammed with traffic in pune)
So do you mean other cities are better managed. Dude.. go take a look.. I live in pune, have been to mumbai and delhi numerous times and as on 19th June 2008 as to what I have seen during my recent visit to bangalore a week back, Bangalore is way better than pune.
I will tell you what… Bangalore sure needs to improve but to say other cities are better is utter nonsense. and that just shows the frustration not because of the traffic jams in bangalore, but the inability to accept bangalore with all its cliches is still ahead of other cities..(simple reason: other cities have more cliches)