aditya kumar's weblog

Saw this sticker on the back of a car. It said:

“Mr Chief Minister…
WASSSUP?
What about the work on the Airport Road Flyover?”

Since the last 2 years, the flyover has been as is- no work whatsoever. The road crossing there which normally should not take more than 6-7 minutes by car in normal traffic usually renders the car useless. It’s better off walking there. Meanwhile, hope is there since the work resumed last month.

One more incident. Yesterday while our CM was touring Jayanagar in an Air Conditioned Bus, a group of ladies came in the way and stopped the bus. Their demand? “Let the CM out. Let him come out and walk with us on this road.” A heavy rainy day and all we have here is just mud.

I have lived in so many cities across India, but this has the worst infrastructure. Hell, it seems the Government is adamant to keep it that way.

More examples?

The 80 Ft road in Koramangala- this long road is the main road in this part of the city and all we had there till 2 months back was a mixture of stones and sand. Then they fixed it- only a temporary solution as now I see that the road is rapidly coming back to it’s “usual self” and driving regularly on it could cut the lifespan of the tyres by half besides testing the driver’s driving skills. We have a dirt-road adventure, right in the middle of the city. Or for that matter, anywhere in the city for it is the same story on every road.

And here comes the biggie- Sometime before March of this year, the World Bank (YES, the WORLD BANK) paid BMC for the funding of not just this road, but all the Bangalore Roads under the Karnataka Municipal Reforms Project. (Did you notice? We have a State level reforms project going on since the last 8 months. Did you know that?) Where has all the money gone? In the potholes?

But yes, work for the malls, which are coming up like wild mushrooms, never stops. There is one opening up just opposite to “The Forum” mall. Who needs roads? Who needs a better drainage system? So what if we spend 1 hour, one way, reaching the office because of the traffic? Who cares if Azim Premji himself goes on record calling Bangalore a national calamity? We need our malls. We need those escalator clad, centrally air-conditioned malls.

Later I came to know about this. The source of the “Wasssup?” stickers.