silkboard's blog

Our 'best' cities for business

23 October 2007 - 4:05pm — silkboard

In a magazine recently, I read a "best cities for business" survey with interest. The Business Today-Synovate survey. Besides being interested in knowing Bangalore's rank - we climbed down from #1 last year to #3 behind Mumbai and Delhi - I also wondered about the method they used for the survey.

Roads over storm water drains - what happened?

17 October 2007 - 1:10am — silkboard

Remember this interesting call for expression of interest that appeared on BBMP website earlier this year (here):

"BBMP intends to create a road net work above the main storm water drain wherever feasible ... total length of primary and secondary drain net work is 250 km spread over the entire city."

Bangalore, demolitions, media etc

15 October 2007 - 8:37am — silkboard

Demolitions have been making news every other week, looks like BBMP is going to keep their razors up even after the rains are gone.

Papers report today (online link unavailable) that BBMP is set to demolish parts of the club-house of Koramangala National Games village. It was reported earlier that the club-house was situated atop Raja Kaluve.

I found this news report - Portions of nine buildings demolished in Puttenahalli - interesting for the last paragraph it carries.

Traffic and directions!

10 October 2007 - 9:39am — silkboard

Everybody going in every possible direction on Outer Ring Road between Intel office and Sarjapur Road. A very good representation of Bangalore Traffic as it is today - in absence of any enforcement, we form our own rules, and mind you we don’t do a bad job of it either. Don’t let the chaos visible in this picture distract you, we eventually manage to reach our destinations :) And yes, there is a cop in the picture as well, try find him.

5 comments

Bangalore and Ribbon Development

7 October 2007 - 3:16pm — silkboard

Bangalore's peripheral areas all messed up? Blame it on Ribbon Development. Let me introduce you to a term very relevant to the congested sprawl that our city is witnessing. Simply put, Ribbon Development means building shops and houses along the roads radiating from a town. If you were to look at Bangalore from the skies and track recently laid or widened major arterial roads leading out of the city, you would notice that almost all big ticket construction/development happens solely along (rather right on top of) these roads.

Do me another favor. When on the periphery of Bangalore, try take a left or right out of any big radial road. This is most likely what you would see [pictures below]. Pathetic roads, poor quality of construction and even narrower streets if you were to venture into a "layout".

DLF to build a 'new Bangalore' at Bidadi !

2 October 2007 - 10:52am — silkboard

Looks like DLF is all set to translate BMRDA's satellite town vision into reality. As per today's newspapers, BMRDA is going to award the contract for building a Knowledge City at Bidadi to DLF. The project involves an investment of Rs 60000 crores!! Here are some interesting snippets pulled out from the media reports this morning:

The middle-class slums?

30 September 2007 - 11:59pm — silkboard

Literally no peace or silence. Hear it all loud and clear when any of your neighbors talk. So called 'individual' houses, most of them joined with one another at hips. No air or space between them. 8 to 10 feet wide roads (practically speaking), dotted with cars, and cobwebbed with cables of all sorts - tv, telephone and electricity in that order.

BMIC - Supreme Court questions notification inviting global bids

28 September 2007 - 8:40am — silkboard

So, as was expected by most, Supreme Court questions BMIC notification inviting global bids:

"The Supreme Court on Thursday questioned the Karnataka Government for issuing a notification inviting global bids for the Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor (BMIC) project when there was a specific direction issued in April 2006 to the State and to Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises (NICE) to complete the project expeditiously."

New airport - more aerial shots

26 September 2007 - 11:55am — silkboard

For whatever it is worth, recently when a flight presented an opportunity, I tried some photos of the upcoming Bangalore Airport (BIAL). The results? Nothing too good, but here they are. And sorry, couldn't manage to shoot the approach roads. Next time and more aerial pics soon.

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Choked Bangalore - Heart of the matter?

23 September 2007 - 4:08pm — silkboard

The best piece of news I have heard this month came last week. It goes "BBMP to book crook engineers". Its something we all know and suspect to be true for ever now, and the plan to break the so called 'nexus' is ambitious:

"BBMP will book the engineers of the erstwhile CMCs and TMC who have sanctioned projects on storm water drains, valleys, in agricultural lands etc. ... Taking a serious note of rampant violation of zoning regulations and building bylaws, the BBMP ... will trace these officials ... and recommend action against them ... In the wake of demolitions being carried out across the city, the BBMP has stumbled on several cases where engineers have encouraged encroachments in exchange for kickbacks running into lakhs of rupees."

Not that we haven't heard similar language before, but there is an interesting twist to BBMP's threat this time.

No phone in car - two predictions

18 September 2007 - 9:20am — silkboard

Click on this ad Karnataka government put out in newspapers on Monday. The message is pretty loud and stern - if they find a phone on inside your car or two wheeler, your driving license will get canceled.

BIAL Airport connectivity - a new four-lane expressway?

15 September 2007 - 4:08pm — silkboard

Deccan Herald ran long writeups on Airport connectivity last week, and their reporters did some realistic time checks as well. We know most of those things: extending Metro from Byappanahalli, the now famous six-lane BIAL expressway, check-in counters at railway station itself. But there were some plans and ideas I had not heard in greater details earlier.

Who is it - city government or us?

12 September 2007 - 8:19am — silkboard

How interesting to see different media houses use varying headlines to describe one same PriceWaterhouseCooper (PWC) survey on Bangalore city and governance.

- "We're to blame for city's woes" says Times of India Bangalore

- "Bangaloreans rue city governance" goes NDTV

- "B'lore citizens seek better urban governance" went the source at PTI

Here are some interesting notings from this PWC survey:

Hoardings - can BBMP do it?

9 September 2007 - 7:30am — silkboard

You must have missed this ad BBMP put in newspapers 2 weeks ago. It is an aggressive sounding notice talking about unauthorized hoardings and signboards:

"As per the rules ... exhibitors of illegal advertisements ... banners ... are punishable. Action will be taken against ... by lodging FIR at ... police stations"

Your property tax for 2005 ...

3 September 2007 - 2:40pm — silkboard

... is due! Spotted an interesting BBMP tender that tells us that you could very soon find letters like that in mail.

"BBMP requires services ... to extract data, print Demand/Collection/Balance notices of owners of the Properties in BBMP area ... for the fiscal year 2005"

Further details of scope of this work tells you a bit about the level of computerization at BBMP's end:

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