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Malathahalli Lake - Flushed out - Now a dry lake

14 April 2010 - 11:26am — Neeyathi_hemmige
LakesWater

Hi Prajas,

I stay in Malathahalli , especially close to Malathahalli Lake  When we moved in to this location, we really liked it as it was very calm, a perfect place to live amid nature, a lake close by and lot of trees. The lake was streching upto 7 acres ..

Unfortunately this was a short lived paradise, as i see that the authoriities have forcibly removed the water from the lake and now its a dry land. Upon enquiry, I was told that the BDA has taken-up this project and that would re-create a mini lalbagh and that they would introduce boating etc etc..

What I am worried about is that the water condition in the state is pathetic and if they forcibly dry out a natural lake then what.. Recently there was an artilce in Deccan Herald about the city bore-wells are drying up...

I am not sure if this information is true, however some activity is being conducted. Can you please if anyone who is reading this post have insight to this piece of activity. Thank you in anticipation.

Kind Regards,

Neeyathi

 

Relocation of Kadugodi Bus stand

13 April 2010 - 1:20pm — magarwal10
BusPublic Transport

Now it is expected that Railway Overbridge at Kadugodi will be completed soon. It is the time to think about extension of Volvo bus service at least upto Safal Market as lot of residential layout are upcoming in this stretch. Kadugodi bus stand can be relocated somewhere near Safal Market where the land prices are definitely cheaper as compared to the existing location of bus stand.

MoM with Prof TV Ramachandran

12 April 2010 - 6:18pm — shekhar_mittal
Water

Attendees: Neha Dar, Jim Gowda and myself.

We meet Prof Ramachandran from Center for Ecological Studies, IISc this saturday. Even though, he blasted us for not doing anything after our last meeting with him (read about it here), he spent over 2 hours with us discussing this project among other things. I like to call this meeting "He pulled up our socks" session.

Some of the points which were discussed are

Mysore - Chennai New LHB Shatabdi Experience

12 April 2010 - 4:50pm — Vasanth
Commuter RailPublic Transport

 This Sunday afternoon I travelled from Mysore to Bangalore on 2008, Mysore-Chennai Shatabdi with new generation LHB coaches. It was a very nice experience. I recently travlled between two cities a lot, mostly on road and it was very boring nowadays with too much traffic on Bangalore-Mysore road. Volvo and car travel as well take minimum of 2 hr 15 minutes from Nayandahalli (Bangalore city tip towards Mysore road) to Mysore.

Amazingly train took just 1 hr 50 minutes from Mysore station to Bangalore station, leaving Mysore at 2:15 and reaching Bangalore(Binny Mill) at 4:05. I had travelled last year in the same train but with older coaches, and it took 2 hr 15 minutes. The new coaches have made a lot of difference. We reached Nayandahalli within 1hr 40 minutes. Unfortunately we were not allowed inside the station, were halted with red signal near Binny mill and left inside only after 10 minutes making the journey 2 hours. Hope railways solves this problem.

MoM - Meeting with Mr. Thippeswamy

12 April 2010 - 11:27am — Neha_Dar
Water

Attendees: Shekhar Mittal, Jim Gowda, Zenrainman Sir, Manjari Vishnoi, Neha Dar

 

We met Mr Thippeswamy, Retd. Chief Engineer (BWSSB) on Saturday at IISc. Meeting minutes captured below.

  • Mr. Thippeswamy reviewed our initial list of parameters and had the following remarks:       

             (1) Coverage - As per the Act, BWSSB must provide water supply to Bangalore Metropolitan Area. Only 50% has been covered.

             (2) Unaccounted for Water: This is really a subset of Non-revenue water. Both physical and commercial. Water is also lost due to cleaning of reservoirs, unexpected pipe bursts, supply to fire hydrants, etc.

             (3) Slum Coverage: It is not the BWSSB 's prerogative to proactively provide coverage to slums. Slum Clearance Boards/BBMP/BDA come to them with proposals, which they then implement.

Local Trains vs Circular Rail For Bangalore

8 April 2010 - 5:17pm — Sanjeev
Commuter RailPublic Transport

Analysis of  last three months discussion and media briefing by Shri MoS K H Muniyappa and CM Yeddiyurappa  shows  that MoS is favouring Circular Rail and CM is talking of Local Trains similar to Mumbai.

Now we will see one more round of study by SWR / Railways for Circular Railway and wasting time on this. RITES study on  Local Trains is not considered by MoS K H Muniyappa and no one is talking of this.

Do any one have the details on Circular Rail what MoS K H Muniyappa is talking.  We from Praja need  to do some serious work so that both proposal Local Trains and Circular Train services are sanctioned for Bangalore.

 

 

 

Karnataka State pollution control board (KSPCB) - active?

8 April 2010 - 2:37pm — manjari
EnvironmentPollution

They have 10 offices in Bangalore alone (isnt that good news ;)
They have a lot of laboratories which are set up for KSPCB for data analysis and data gathering.
  
The site says "Samples collected by the Regional Offices of the Board, Industries, Organizations and from general public are analysed."
When i read this I only get evil ideas (evil because it might not be fun for a lot of people)

They have listed a number of parameter that they analyze.
Industrial waste water has: 41 parameters
Air: 6 parameters
Water: 26 parameters.

They have things like "monthly avg result of national ambient air quality" and "classification of river water quality as per GEMS and MINARS"
The only small, tiny winy problem is they have failed to update any new reports and the last one is of 2007.

The last annual plan has been put up for year 2006-2007.

So I have a simple question, what happened to KSPCB? Does it exist? If it does then where are the reports?
If they have reports then cant we file RTI to get it?

air sample parameters

Renewing DL at the RTO without touts/bribes

8 April 2010 - 11:22am — s_yajaman
Private transport

 My wife and I went yesterday to the Indiranagar RTO to renew her DL.  As soon as we stepped into "the zone" there were touts offering help.  We, of course, ignored them and walked up to the RTO.  

As we walked up we realized that my wife's DL said "RTO BNG CENTRAL" (Koramangala) and we wondered what trouble that would mean.  But we decided to check anyway.

There was a helpdesk there.  It was operational.  We asked the lady there if we could renew the license here.  She gave us the forms and asked us to check at Window 3 if it was possible.  We also realized there was a medical fitness certificate (completely in Kannada) to be got from a doctor.

At Window 3 there was a reasonably helpful lady.  She told my wife that it was possible to do it there.  She confirmed if the address remained unchanged.  She asked us to write a letter requesting that the license be renewed there.   

We paid the Rs.250 fee at the cash counter and my wife went to get her MC done.

Bangalore Patrol

7 April 2010 - 1:56pm — manjari

Times of India along with Janaagrah launch Bangalore Patrol (starting tomorrow) says the cover page of TOI today. I tried to look for it online but couldnt find a thing about the same. But if you have a TOI around check it out, it is impossible to miss.

According to the Advertisement "Bangalore patrol involves a stringent ward infrastructure and services assessment programme with the singular aim of demanding direct evaluating and accountability from the local administrative and governance system."

They will start with 5 essential civic rights of water supply, Mobility, Sanitation, Environment and Public amenities.

It will measure the same in 198 wards. By doing so they intend to monitor the work of our newly elected representative's in each of the wards. In my opinion the best measure of performance and also at the same time we get a good idea about our city.
According to the article "Progress report will be based on simple objective performance evaluation criteria and will be freely available to the public, empowering them to demand answers" 

What's on FM radio about Bus Day this week!?

6 April 2010 - 11:54pm — jennypinto
BusPublic Transport

Just to keep all in the loop about what's on air about bus day.... 94.3 , radio one, started Monday this week.

Busday:



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