The Waste Land

 

This black spot on Wind Tunnel Road, Murugeshpalya, has acquired an air of permanency. This patch of land adjoining the HAL airport compound wall remains perpetually overrun by leftover food from households and eateries, and discarded household items like sofas and toilet commodes. 

Both BBMP and HAL have tried all the tactics in their rule book, but this area continues to be a sad reminder that we as a society still have a long way to go in keeping our surroundings clean.

During my morning walks I often see dogs, cows, and birds such as crows and eagles rummaging through the garbage pile for food. This foraging sometimes even results in ugly confrontations, with fights breaking out among the dogs or between crows and eagles. 

The volume of garbage piles varies – when BBMP marshals step up vigil and lie in wait to catch and fine the litterbugs, the pile appears relatively diminished, though the stench lingers on. 

But once they relax their vigil, ‘normalcy’ is restored. Most of the littering, I guess, happens during the night when the area becomes deserted and there is barely any traffic. There are no streetlights either.

But sometimes I come across some intrepid litterbugs who do so during the day, say around 7 am. They come in two-wheelers with the pillion rider carrying a large black polythene bag. The bike slows down near the spot, the pillion rider tosses off the bag, and they scoot off.

On social media we often come across social service organisations carrying out ‘spot fixes’ or makeovers of such black spots, but no such luck for this area.

This particular patch badly needs such a fix as it is not like any other black spot with garbage pile-ups causing inconvenience to nearby residents. Its close proximity to an airfield poses a potential hazard to planes operating out of this airport.

After commercial flights were shifted to BIAL in Devanahalli, HAL Airport has been mainly catering to Indian Air Force aircraft and some occasional VIP flights. 

As numerous birds frequent this garbage dump, this aggravates the risk of a bird-hit for aircraft operating out of HAL Airport. It also endangers the lives of our airmen, who fly fighter plane sorties and test flights on a regular basis. 

Their jobs are fraught with numerous risks, with death stalking at every step. In addition, they now have to contend with this occupational hazard of bird menace mainly because nearby residents and others have scant regard for civic sense.   

As people, we are ever eager to carry out token symbolism to show our love for armed forces like say changing the display picture of our WhatsApp status during Independence Day or Republic Day or posting pictures or videos on social media of soldiers carrying out some risky tasks in Siachen Glacier and other places that in turn attract numerous 'likes' from friends and followers.

But when it comes to doing something more concrete that may help our men in uniform, apathy reigns supreme.

So this spot continues to be in a mess and the stench becomes unbearable especially when it rains.

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A Flyover to Nowhere

A cartoon is doing rounds on Twitter about two archaeologists in 3000 AD visiting the spot where the unfinished Ejipura to Kendriya Sadan flyover lies and wondering, “Nobody really understands why they were built.” The flyover has been in the making for over five years and even now nobody has any clue regarding its completion. It is a sore testimonial of the shortcomings in the execution of infrastructure projects. 

With the traffic volumes at Ejipura junction and the subsequent Sony Signal in Koramangala, where 100 Feet Road intersects the Inner Ring Road, witnessing an exponential increase, the then state government in 2014 decided to build a flyover to provide a signal-free traffic flow and decongest Koramangala.

Kolkata-based firm Simplex Infrastructure Limited was given the work order for the flyover and the work began in 2017. The motorists began feeling the heat when the middle section of the Inner Ring Road was barricaded with tin sheets to erect flyover pillars.

The carriage space got nearly halved and the travel time doubled for traversing between Ejipura junction and Sony Signal. During the evening peak hours, when the offices at Embassy Golf Links Technology Park near Domlur empty out, the six-lane Inner Ring road has four rows of cars moving in each direction, with two-wheelers snaking through whatever remaining space.

After the Ejipura signal, the jostle for restricted carriage space begins. Incessant honking, brinkmanship and big vehicle bullying smaller ones happen.

For Koramangala and Ejipura residents, the dust emanating from the pillar construction and the loud noise of earth movers and cranes disrupted their day-to-day life. Many had to keep their doors and windows permanently shut.

The first deadline was 2019, but like most infrastructure projects Simplex too failed to honour it. Hardly any eyebrows were raised and motorists on the Inner Ring Road went through their daily grind in a ‘grin and bear it’ mode.

However, what followed rattled even diehard sceptics. Simplex missed many more deadlines and the company’s mounting debts pushed its 28 lenders, including some prominent banks, to classify it as a ‘non-performing asset’ in 2020. The BBMP was left with no option but to terminate the contract.

Another stumbling block was transferring defence and private land for the flyover and clearance to cut trees. These issues have still not been resolved.

All work came to a grinding halt with the unfinished pillars standing out like sore thumbs. Earth movers and other movable assets soon disappeared, leaving behind the remnants of a half-finished flyover. The tin sheets put up as barricades were also subsequently removed.

This status quo has remained for over two years and these unfinished structures have gathered moss during monsoon and pose a hazard to motorists.

BBMP has been making efforts to kick-start the stalled project, but it has so far not been successful. The response to the fresh tenders in August last year was poor with only two firms participating and they too failed to qualify the eligibility criteria. Hence the flyover's fate continues to remain in limbo.

The effectiveness of flyovers in easing the traffic flow has been open to heated debate. They were initially seen as a magic wand as they helped vehicles move past the traffic jams, but the city planners soon realized that they merely shifted the snarl from one place to another and created new bottlenecks. Instead, transport experts moot that the policymakers should make public transport more effective and attractive to users to decongest the cities.

However, flyovers continue to find favour with the politician-contractor lobby as it means involvement of big money and kickbacks.

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Bangalore Auto Drivers' Manifesto

Politeness is as alien to us as a pothole-free road or a well-paved litter free footpath in the city. If you find a polite auto driver, then you might as well buy a lottery ticket and be assured that lady luck will smile on you.

We strongly believe in the credo 'taking someone for a ride' and have even applied for an ISO certification in this regard. However, the insiders there have cautioned that we are in for a stiff competition from our counterparts in Chennai and Delhi. So we have to be on our toes and keep thinking about innovative ways to implement our credo.

Meters are meant to be ornamental, but sometimes we have to oblige pesky customers, who think they are doing something smart. Little do they know that our meters don't run as per distance covered, but on jumps and jerks the vehicle experiences on hitting potholes and speed breakers.

The fare meter works in different ways vis-a-vis potholes and speed breakers. As for potholes it is inversely proportional - the deeper the pothole, the higher the quantum jump in the meter. Whereas in case of speed breakers it is directly proportional. And in this regard we specially thank BBMP, BWSSB, telecom companies for tirelessly working round the clock to ensure that we are never away from potholes. We also thank the citizens of Namma Bengaluru for being generous in erecting unauthorised speed breakers every 20-30 feet distance on bylanes and that too more than double the Government stipulated height.  

We are hypersensitive towards distances and have a narrow range of 2 to 5 kilometres. Anything less or beyond is treated as if the customer has asked for a free ride to Mars or Pluto. This gesture (of contemptuously driving away without any basic courtesy of saying 'yes' or 'no') has earned us a global patent and you will not find it among drivers in any other city. In case if you come across any auto driver from other city trying to imitate us, please bring it to our notice (for contact number you can check out our website) so that we can begin legal proceedings.

Although traffic police have stipulated timings for charging one-and-half and double fares we believe that time is a continuum and hence cannot be compartmentalised. Our excuses to charge extra fare may range from somewhat plausible (we may not get passengers while returning) to whatever we feel like at the moment (it is raining ... lot of traffic ... I have headache ... and the like).

It is our birthright to stalk passengers alighting from trains and outstation buses. Also the right to exercise it much more aggressively during odd hours and quote fares which may well be higher than what the passengers may have paid for their train or bus journey.

Lastly, we have every right to enjoy pleasant afternoons by indulging in a siesta on the back seat of autos and woe betide if anyone tries to wake us!

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