silkboard's blog

Solar power - rooftop, grid-connect, community grid, 3 diff things

1 April 2012 - 10:05am — silkboard

Sanjay and IDS are already at it on another post (Solar - connected to Grid). Sorry guys, keep it on there, but I thought a primer on slightly varying type of talks on the subject may help. There seems to be a need for incentives, policy push and awareness on these three types of scenarios.

Right to Services aka Sakala - live from April!

31 March 2012 - 9:55am — silkboard

So Right to Services, or timebound delivery of services to citizens goes live in state of Karnataka from Monday, April 2. What services are we guaranteed to get? Well, go to this website, go to "Services", pick your department to see what services are "in scope" (http://sakala.kar.nic.in). I went there, clicked on BBMP, here is the list:

Kerbstone painting to enforce roadside parking?

26 March 2012 - 9:00am — silkboard

Every drop of paint used on or around the road should have some purpose, should communicate something to the road users. If you look at the kerbstones, you would find a lot of paint wasted in creating the black/white or black/yellow stripes. As far as I know, the black/yellow or black/white paint patterns don't communicate anything to road users or drivers.

Hoarding menace - BBMP's helplessness?

5 March 2012 - 8:14am — silkboard

Recently, before leaving the city, an expat left behind this 'hoarding' as his thank you note to Bengaluru. Humorous indeed, but to us and BBMP, this should be a hurtful mockery of the way things are out of control on our roads.

Elevated 'through' corridor concept - a "plus" inside Outer Ring Road

8 February 2012 - 10:31am — silkboard

Talking of vehicle movements, one need not addressed very well yet inside Bangalore city is separation of long-distance movements with local movements. One way this might be getting done today for goods movement is by routing their city entry from the point nearest to destination on Outer Ring Road.

Minibus that BMTC needs for local shuttles?

6 February 2012 - 9:38am — silkboard

Some of us think that operating local shuttles as the last mile / local connect option will help bring more people from deeper areas to the trunk routes, and thus make public transport better. However, BMTC folks don't find local shuttles to be viable. One reason given for un-viability is minibus design.

Drunk drivers of Bengaluru = 4 Crore worth black money?

17 December 2011 - 9:23pm — silkboard

Now that I have had 10 second hand reports on this, its time to do some math on the black money generated by drunken drivers of Bangalore. I am yet to experience this first hand (hope never to), those who have, say that they pay anywhere from Rs 1500 - 2500 in all after they get booked for drunken driving.

Mobility Projects and Citizen engagement - how is it today, and how should it happen?

3 December 2011 - 11:47am — silkboard

[Update Dec 16: attaching the presentation prepared through this post]

FDI in retail for Karnataka - I say NO! Can wait.

28 November 2011 - 10:11am — silkboard

Retail, FDI - don't stop reading here please, its not as geeky a topic as it sounds. Lets talk our state for a moment. Refer TimesofIndia Bangalore, page 15, "Karnataka industry mostly supports FDI in retail". Refer this, a quote by Mr J Casta:

Will you support a PIL against BBMP & BMTC or GoK transport ministry?

26 November 2011 - 9:47am — silkboard

Are you pained by mobility situation in Bangalore, and think that it has not improved or worsened during last 5 years? If yes, then would you read below and answer these two questions?

Shaping Bangalore's periphery - before its too late

20 November 2011 - 11:48pm — silkboard

Our city, Bengaluru has a core, and periphery. Let us define the area bound between Outer Ring Road as the core, and beyond as periphery. If you look back from nineties onwards, City planners cared for people to live in the core, and work in the periphery.

'Soft' measures to promote Kannada - the time is now?

18 November 2011 - 12:55am — silkboard

Okay. I wrote this on Rajyotsava day itself, but didn't post for fear of generating the wrong kind of debates. Two weeks later, here it is.

Karnataka Right to Services - Feedback. Summary - need money & IT

7 November 2011 - 1:44am — silkboard

GoK may have pushed it to score points, may be that they rushed through the ordinance, but this is THE MOST important development in recent years on governance front. We all need to just get in on this to make sure this happens, and happens right.

City Buses in PPP mode - Bhubaneswar. Why not Mysore?

3 November 2011 - 11:13pm — silkboard

Did you know that Bhubaneswar operates Buses in PPP model? They may be planning a BRT too in PPP or outsourced model (see another post for details). Any idea on population and size of Bbsr? 9 lakhs, 135 sqkm. Mysooru? Almost the same, close to 10 lakhs, 130 sqkm.

Clippings from an attached ppt attributed to Mr Saurabh Garg, an IAS officer from Orissa (Odissa?)

Bhubaneswar going Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) - see RFP

3 November 2011 - 10:29pm — silkboard

They have been talking BRTS for at least 3 years now. Orissa government announced the intent earlier this year in July. This week, BDA (Bhuwaneshwar Development Authority, not our BDA) floated tenders for doing detailed technical project report for BRT for total 49 km long, 6 corridors of BRT.

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