Honking dangerously driven buses,
cars, trucks, two wheeler and taxis occupies 200 feet’s on a 100 feet wide
road giving no space to pedestrians at Tin Factory, Old Madras Road area of
Bangalore. It is a common scene in almost all other areas also in Bangalore. I
travel on working days from Tin Factory to ITPL for my office which is just 9.3
Kilometers but it takes more than an hour by own or public transport to reach
in morning and at least half an hour more in evening. It’s difficult for me to
articulate my experience of this wonderful journey which includes the worst
traffic hit areas on the way. But as usual being an Indian and having “Chalta
Hai” thinking, I always forget the anger on authorities who are responsible for
Traffic and Infrastructure management when I reach office or home. But who is
really responsible for this, increasing no. of vehicles on road, increasing
population, defunct authorities or government or if it’s the mentality or
attitude of people of this country. I know it is always a complex debate but
when it comes to accountability it’s certainly on relevant authorities and government.
There are so many examples in world when new cities are developed where lots of
planning is involved to create a right and suitable infrastructure for the
needs and demands for an emerging city but in India it’s difficult to imagine.
Bangalore being the silicon valley of India is lagging on all parameters of urban
planning and development. Inspite being home to many world famous IT companies
and intellectuals it’s one of the worst managed cities in India. Going from one
area to another area in weekdays becomes a travel like from one city to
another. On the way you will be able to see many fights due to traffic jam,
vehicles hitting each other due to frustrated drivers, government buses trying
to overtake each and every vehicle coming in their way and worst being no
presence of traffic police in such cases. Yes, it’s right that traffic police
can’t alone manage this but the accountability lies with government and urban
planners who are responsible for letting un-authorised developments and
untimely digging of roads. If these authorities don’t become serious one day
there will be a deadlock of traffic in Bangalore and that day is very near. Instead of promise of better public transport and
metro it seems everything is on paper and priority is politics and not
governance. I wanted to highlight more related issues of failure of urban planning but being an optimist I would like to see India also having well
planned and smart cities at least for our next generation which will only
happen when actions will overtake promises.
