Nine Point Three Kilometers!!!

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.