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 | 2 Comments »