Being born in the city early 70’s,
life was limited to boundaries of
HAL Airport – Marathalli, Adugodi-
Jayanagar 9th Block-Basavangudi-
Malleswaram-Palace Orchards-
Jalahalli -Peenya.
We drive both ways on
JC Road & KG Road freely.
Peak Hour traffic was
1 BTS Bus,
2 Cars,
3 Autos &
4 Scooters -
few people walking around on
JC Road. MG Road
had Chit-Chat,
Ice-cream Parlor,
Lake View & few restaurants.
Within city, any point to point
max commute time was 30 mins by a scooter.
In Rs 7/- you could have a wholesome meal,
Sampige Road in Malleswaram
was 2 way street from Central to Mallewaram Circle.
Funny facts:
I have not seen a circle in Malleswaram 4th cross -
but it’s called Malleswaram Circle.
If you tell an auto driver “4th Block”,
by default he would take you to
Jayanagar 4th Block.
East of Vidhana Soudha or
GPO, everything was “Cantonment” area.
Walking on Brigade Road -
M.G.Road was a proud moment,
driving in a car was like getting the Guard of Honor.
Though 2 Bhashyam circles exist, the
Bhashyam Circle was by default
Sadashivanagar Bhashyam Circle.
And These Government Organizations
were headquartered in this beautiful City.
HAL - Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. And the adjoining HAL Airport.
HMT- Hindustan Machine tools and the adjoining HMT Watch Factory.
BEL – Bharath Electronics Limited
BHEL – Bharath Heavy Electrical Limited
BEML - Bharat Earth Movers Limited
DRDO - Defense Research and Development Organization.
NAL - National Aerospace Laboratories.
NGEF - New Government Electrical Factory
ISRO - Indian Space Research Organization.
ISAC - ISRO Satellite Centre.
IISc - Indian Institute of Science.
Air force Stations in Yelahanka, Jalahalli,
Command Hospital.
Army Base and the Cantonment Region.
And many more such traditional high-quality Government organizations.
During Venus Circus fire accident,
animals were secured near the Railway station.
I happened to pass by the next morning en route from
Jalahalli to Banashankari & was curious to see all kinds of
wild animals tethered around Mysore side railway station.
Sweet Bun - 10 Paisa,
Cream Puff - 25 Paisa, Veg Puff - 35 Paisa,
Toast - 15 Paisa,
Bread Loaf - 50 Paisa,
Cinema in GALAXY – Rs 3/-.
In 1989, I started to work for a
salary Rs, 450/- per month
I'm happy because I'm a fresher’s
in the job and I'm only 18 years old
and I want to learn full so
salary is not a preference for me.
Enjoying with friends roaming the
city end to end on Sundays in a
Rs 5/- BTS bus pass,
Life was pretty much peaceful.
The things I have witnessed
from the past 25 years are
heart-wrenching when
I think about how the city
spiraled its way down into chaos.
Now, how did the culture of
Bangalore become so sophisticated?
I am talking before the IT Boom in the city.
You can see that these organizations
that I have mentioned above which
took half of Bangalore’s area then,
were highly technical and specialized.
The employees in each of these organizations,
at each level, were highly educated,
highly sophisticated and highly technical.
And I am talking this, way back in the
1970s and 1980s. So, the entire crowd
which were these Government employees
were of upper middle class with sophistication.
And so were their children.
With highly educated parents
and an enabling surrounding,
the children also became of a different class.
And that’s when Bangalore became the
Rock & Pop Capital of India. In the early 90s.
This was before the in-migration of people to
Bangalore had started to take place in a large scale.
Then, the IT Boom happened
Infosys
Wipro
TCS
Electronic City
ITPL
Whitefield Area
Silk Board Area
Startups
And what not.
This is when every year,
sometime between April and May;
citizens all over urban India get started
pouring in massively for employment into Bangalore.
Till the end of 1999, the home-grown
Bangaloreans had lived in an era of true
sophistication and had the tag of true Bangaloreans.
From 2001, started the IT Revolution.
With it came the BPO revolution and the
Biotech Revolution in Bangalore.
And with it brought such disastrous problems : -
Population increased from
42 Lakhs in 1992 to 95 Lakhs in 2017.
That is within a span of 25 years,
the population literally doubled itself,
with the same base resources.
Population is exploding,
from 42 to 95 lakh in 25 years and counting.
Has Bengaluru’s IT boom ruined the city?
Yes;
IT companies came to the city because
they felt the city was a rich catchment
area for talent.
The weather was great, a pub culture
was developing, the city was
small and you could drive
from one end to another in
less than 30 minutes.
while the IT industry increased
the influx of people from other
states and the city, its expansion
was not planned at all. The onset of the
BPO industry led to an
explosion of cabs on the roads.
The arrival of large numbers of
drivers and construction workmen,
created associated sociological
and law and order problems.
An inordinately high number of rapes
are committed by drivers.
Only last month,
a cab driver abducted a young
Manipuri woman from a public place;
scooping her up and
carrying her to an empty building
where he proceeded to molest her.
The incident was so bizarre
that few people would have believed
that it happened if it hadn’t been captured on CCTV.
With rise in population,
and a rise in the standard of living
and income levels, and with a drastic
decrease in the cost of vehicles,
the number of vehicles that used to ply
on the roads of Bangalore increased
from 6 Lakhs (4 Lakhs of 2-Wheelers)
in 1992 to 60 Lakhs in 2017.
Where have all the roads gone?
The less said about
Bengaluru’s roads the better.
They are mostly inadequate.
With builders running rampant,
very few buildings have proper parking.
That means, cars are parked on the roads.
Pedestrian pavements don’t exist.
Potholes are never filled.
Traffic police do not have the numbers
to control the exploding numbers of vehicles
(60 lakh, at last count). Thanks to ill-maintained roads,
it takes forever to drive even short distances.
Sadly, no one cares
The two civic bodies that are
meant to take care of Bangalore’s
civic issues are the
BBMP (the Corporation) and
the Bangalore Development Authority
(BDA). Both are corrupt and inefficient
and it really does not matter
which political party is in power.
There once used to be a designated
green belt around the city in
which no construction was allowed.
Nobody seems to know
what happened to that.
The city has no proper
policy in place for land and water use.
This sudden increase of vehicles
from 6 to 60 Lakhs took a huge toll on the roads,
the trees and the air pollution.
To make way for these vehicles, more flyovers were built,
78 percent of green cover has vanished in a decade.
According to a research,
urbanization rose 125 percent from
2000 to 2014; all at the expense of the city’s
once-famous greenery.
Trees have been cut down mercilessly
to make way for road widening and
construction. Even parks are not safe.
A few years ago, legislators
were all set to grab a piece of
Cubbon Park to build a club.
Luckily, citizen activism thwarted that plan.
Bengaluru’s human population is
currently 95 lakh against a tree
population of around 15 lakh trees.
“Based on age, every day
one person exhales 540-900
grams of carbon dioxide and
one hectare of trees takes in
close to eight tons of carbon
dioxide. So based on that calculation
every person needs eight trees.
You can imagine how
pathetic the situation is.”
That works out to around
one tree for every seven humans.
Unplanned urbanization’
surprised me
The reason is BDA housing policies
and other industrial housing colonies,
925 percent increase in concretization
since 1970
The problem is that most of this is
unplanned. Homes are built in places
with limited road access, no water supply,
no sewage lines. In most homes in the greater
metropolitan area, water comes from bore wells
and sewage flows into the nearest lake.
Homes are not the only offenders;
commercial buildings are built without parking
arrangements, which means cars are parked
on service roads and main roads, obstructing traffic.
“It’s disturbing to see private developers
dominate government decisions.
The norm to keep at least 15-20 percent
of the city as open space is ignored,
storm water drains and water bodies
have been narrowed.
Bengaluru’s lakes are vanishing
Nobody can give a clear estimate
of the state of Bengaluru's lakes,
because although many do exist
on paper, in reality a lot of them have
been filled up and built upon.
According to one estimate,
Bangalore had 261 lakes in 1961,
which had reduced to
around 80 by the mid-1980s.
Today, there could be less than 25.
According to research,
54 percent of lakes were
encroached for illegal buildings.
The ones remaining are in
poor health, 66 percent
are fed by sewage,
14 percent are surrounded by slums,
and 72 percent showed loss
of catchment area due to construction.
Even today, construction debris is dumped
into lakes and lakebeds, a prelude to encroachment.
Forget the lakes; ruthless builders are
even encroaching on drains.
In many places, natural drains
have been covered and built over.
This is a problem on two fronts.
One, the water has nowhere to go,
which makes flooding a common
phenomenon during rains.
A Chennai-like disaster is
waiting to happen in Bengaluru.
The second problem is that these
drains often take rainwater to the lakes.
By filling up the drains, water flow to
the lakes are cut off, leading to their
drying up and getting encroached upon.
Sudden increase in the
consumption of electricity,
water and other natural resources.
No wonder Cauvery river is being
suffocated now.
With the IT setup,
the IT software guys had a
higher source of additional
income, which they needed to
spend in their free time. And for
their entertainment, new restaurants,
shopping malls, pubs and bars
came up. With it more and more
employment opportunities for
more and more people.
Back in 1998, Bangalore
had pubs for the elite, where
true music used to be made.
Current Shillong is a true replica of
the 90s Bangalore. But now, in 2017,
the pubs and bars have become so
fake and wanna-be that the true
Bangalore culture is being deteriorated.
Traffic. Imagine. Same roads.
Population from 42 to 95 Lakhs.
Vehicles from 6 to 60 Lakhs. Mind blown!
Notice that I haven’t even talked a
bout the weather till now.
The weather part everyone knows.
24 Degrees all year long. Perfection!
This is just a teaser till now,
and it will go on like this for
the next two decades.
City begin to die, most
people don’t realize that it’s happening.
A dead city does not mean that
people are no longer living in it.
It means that it is no longer
worth living in.
In my opinion,
we have already
reached that point.
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