These
days I am driving to work, because it’s getting too hot, and I don’t want to
get into a bus these days, mornings fine, but evenings sometimes it’s a
disaster. I have no idea when I will get over on any particular day I get late
often. Getting into a local bus that time is tricky. Forget about space to sit,
you can barely stand. Yes this happens in the AC Volvo buses (those are the
ones that I take but still suffer in the evenings when I am late).
I
absolutely despise the people who don’t care about fellow travelers and have
their sweaty armpits for display. I mean, please guys invest in a deo at least
or the ones they tell about ‘only perfume, no gas’, but don’t murder other
passengers with the bad odour. Anyways that’s precisely the reason I am giving
myself some respite and driving down from Electronic City to Old Airport Road
[yeah that far and for those who don’t know it’s about 20 kms, one side.]
The
newest trends that I am listening to during my drives these days are the
political radio ads. I will do one more post on them and link it sometime
later. But believe me guys they are hilarious and then they get irritating. I
mean how many times am I going to listen to the bullshit of “Jisne meri Zindagi Badli” and “I am
development I am coming to India because he is coming”!!! It’s not funny
anymore.
Not
when I see the condition of the roads that I drive through. Specially the one
that is right in front of my house. The Neeladri Road in EC Phase 1 is the
single most important road that connects Electronic City residential areas to
all the corporate big wigs like Wipro, Infosys, HP, HLC and I don’t know how
many. You should look at the condition of the roads and you will know why I am
writing this post. It’s been like this and worsening by the day for about a
year now and with complete Govt. apathy.
So
definitely ‘meri zindagi to badly hai
nahi’ and I have no idea how much ‘development’ Bangalore will see. These
are some of the snaps before the start of the monsoon this year. And with the
rains starting we need to invest in boats, I guess, and keep our cars locked in
the garage!!!
This
road connects Bannerghatta road to EC and you see many taking this route to
avoid Jayanagar-BTM-Silk Board Route.
If
you try to understand why no road repair has been happening here then you will
get to the classic Indian case of ‘it-is-not-under-me’ syndrome and so no
organization/board wants to take the responsibility. The residents and
commuters instead face the brunt of this apathy every single day.
BBMP
says they are not responsible, ELCIA (the body who is supposed to look after
the development and infrastructure of EC) says we will maintain only till Wipro
other than that they are not interested, local MLA says, we don’t have money so
a Pvt. builder will maintain the road. The builder wants some recognition and
wants the illegal encroachment to be taken off first and the PWD says they have
no idea how to take off the encroachments on road!
So
you can see the loop is still not closed and it’s like those elastics which you
can stretch and keep going round and round till you forget what you were doing!
There
are also these entities who are the so called individual small builders. You
can see two kinds of properties in EC –
one by reputed builders (don’t know how reputed but at least they have clear
papers) and the second are the famous ones who doesn’t pay any developmental
fee to BBMP/BDA but rather pay bribe to get their project sanctioned. You can
see these single building apartments mushrooming in every nook and corner and
they neither have a proper drainage system nor have any clear papers. So the
BDA says, they have not paid money we are not going to work there.
Now
who the hell is going to lay the roads??
It
has become an accident prone zone, there aren’t any more potholes, they are
craters and you have heavy trucks, construction trucks, cars, buses everything
plying through them. I can’t believe a road like this can exist in a city like
Bangalore. What must be the situation in smaller towns in some other state! It
is especially bad for all the expecting ladies to commute through these roads,
if they meet with a tragedy it will be their loss not of any other
organization/board and thus they are just not bothered.
And
just before the election you will find all MLAs going from complex to complex
asking for votes and doing hundred promises [like the one in the recent Idea
Cellular Advert – yes that ‘no ullu
banaying’ one]
So
this time these guys better do the work first, do something good and then we
can think on voting. I can see many things have already happened with
Change.org, Bangalore Mirror reporting, I remember watching an episode on NDTV
citizen journalist on this road issue, but that has been happening for more
than a year. As usual NOTHING HAS
HAPPENED. We have only wasted time and energy and have done rounds with
MLAs, their secretaries, CM’s office and god knows who all.
This
time around we have decided on NO ROAD
NO VOTE. Enough has been said and nothing has been done, and if you don’t
stand up to it nothing will ever happen. They better lay the tar road (which
you can see now like some sprinklers, as they are hardly there). I am going to
participate in this campaign, because truly, these guys don’t deserve a vote.
The
way things are going the Govt might want you to repair it yourself one day.
Today the people on Neeladri Road are facing this, I am sure there are many
more such cases waiting to see the light of the day.
If
you are facing such a problem nearby don’t wait for someone to listen to you, and
if you are staying in Electronic City Bangalore join the movement. There is a demonstration
on 27th March 8 AM to 10 AM near Genesis Eco Sphere apartment
one Neeladri Road. You can follow #neeladriroadblore on twitter or https://www.facebook.com/saveneeladriroad
on Face book.