Blogs

With the oil and gas prices having risen to exorbitant levels, and thermal power generation posing serious challenges with regard to issues like carbon emission, technologies which were earlier considered uneconomical, are beginning to be re-visited. One such possibilty is discussed here. India is perhaps better placed to take it forward faster.

It’s often a Bangalorean’s worst nightmare on the road – to find a parking spot! It’s sometimes almost unreal and unbelievable when you come across an empty one!

Posting this on behalf of Photoyogi, he is at BDA junction right now, watching temporary traffic chaos live as the magic box there has just now been opened to public. First reports indicate that due to lack of clear communication on new traffic routing plan (see this recent post that has the new plan), folks are struggling to find their way around. Please tell your journalist friends to carry the new route map sketched here earlier in tomorrow's papers so that the chaos can ease.

As the summer months progress and our hydro-electric reservoirs dry down, along comes the dreaded load-shedding. While it is true that the demand for electricity is far greater than the supply, I guess there is surely something we can do to shorten this gap from the supply end. For this post, I would skip the issues with ‘leakage’ or electricity and ‘grid inefficiency’ and would discuss about the technical and policy aspects at the end-user level. I hope you will be able to add your inputs and we can get the required policy changes through collective lobbying. (Image Courtesy jalalspage)

I have drafted a letter meant for Shri Praful Patel. Pls feel free to comment on the letter and also do suggest me/praja members on its delivery method.

A few of us are meeting Mr Upendra Tripathy (BMTC) this Thursday. Unfortunately, we couldn't get to organize this as a broader and open-to-all-who-are-interested type of meeting. But, we will:

• Talk to him and explore ways of connecting our upcoming "working group" here with BMTC
• Try to show him as much of the good suggestions that have come up here so far

I made a presentation yesterday to Mr.Subramanya (BBMP Commisioner) at his office about the single bus lane idea. He was quite interested and said he would discuss with his committee and revert. He also agreed very well that the solution was not to build or widen more roads or flyovers. He also mentioned some problems that are being faced with the underpasses construction on Bellary road - the actual costs were much higher than anticipated because numerous problems had cropped up - conduits for sewerage, water, telephone, electricity, etc that were marked incorrectly on admittedly very old drawings that now need to be re-aligned !

[Here is the presentation, prepared with a lot of help from folks and material here on Praja]

In the "unlocking bangalore" debate I come from 2 or 3 contexts.

a) I believe there is at least 30% capacity on our roads which are wasted by non adherence and non implementation of the law( both traffic laws and a myriad of civic laws )

b) I believe that of the various enforcers/government bodies out there ,the traffic police is one of the better ones , but who are are always at the worst end of the stick, tremendously underresourced and unempowered.