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AKRAMA SAKRAMA, IT IS FULL DRAMA

PUTTING BANGALOREANS IN FULL TRAUMA,

MAKING EVERY ONE TELL AYYO RAMA AYYO RAMA

I have been travelling to Madras and back by train quite often over the past few months and have had the opportunity to sample the pre-paid auto service about 5 times. The sample size might be a bit too small to make any conclusive statements, but here goes... All my arrivals into the city have been around 5:00 a.m. by either the Bangalore Mail or the Kaveri express. Invariably there are taxi drivers and auto drivers who greet you at the exit. Invariably I refuse.

Over the past few months I have read a number of announcements by the traffic police on how they are going to improve things, I really have not seen much progress

Mayor of London, Mr Ken Livingstone, made headlines when he visited Mumbai and Delhi recently. Amongst the things he said, here is one that I thought stood out.

"London mayor Ken Livingstone said on Wednesday that ... when it comes to the development of a city like Mumbai, he said he was not sure if his counterpart here can do much to change people’s lives with limited executive powers."

Thats a quote from TOI Mumbai Nov 22 2007. Truth hurts, but Mr Livingstone was almost right when he said that:

"... unfortunately the mayor of Mumbai did not have any power regarding important matters affecting the city. Almost all the powers are with the state government."

How would you like the ability to watch and follow all work that our local governments do? All concerned citizens want it. A lot of work needs to happen though to make such a thing possible. Fancy websites for bodies like BBMP and BMRC are only the face, there need to be internal government systems to store and expose the information about their workings. And then you need easy to use tools that sarkaari babus and engineers would use to enter information into these systems.

Forget the technicalities for a moment. What we want is this. Tender gets floated for a work, we see it. We should then see all the bids, and the winner. And then on, the status and progress of work. Last, after the work gets completed, the details of how it was signed off as completed or successful.

Ever since we have heard about CTTP for Bangalore, we have always wanted to get our hands on it. We have been anticipating its release and have been grabbing the tidbits that were floating around.

But now Ladies and Gentlemen, the wait is over. We, the ever resourceful admins of Praja have been able to get our hands on the full copy and for your convenience have it posted here.

You can start by reading an executive summary here. Once you click on the link, you will see a new menu on your right hand side that links to each of the chapters of the CTTP. It is structured like a book so you can also use the links below each page to navigate.

Now, wear your thinking caps and start analysing the plan.

A good shortcut from Banerghatta road to Hosur road might be possible sometime soon. I dont really know the location of all the villages and layouts mentioned, but looks like BBMP is upgrading and asphalting a lot of roads in the Bommanahalli/Begur, Arekere area. Sample some:

- Improvements and Asphalting to road from Begur road to Hosur main road via Hongasandra Garvebavipalya (1st Main Road) - 30 lakhs.

- Improvements and Asphalting the Devarachikkanahalli main road (Begur road connecting Vijayabank layout) - 30 lakhs.