Bangalore is happening city because of IT boom. Not long ago, the city used to be called pensioner’s paradise and garden city of India. Gardens are no longer green. Felling of trees to accommodate increasing human population and garbage littered around tells the sordid story of death of green city of Bangalore. Solitary houses are converting into multi-storey buildings. Marshy and outskirts open areas are turning into concrete jungles. Towering apartments and flats just like pigeon holes are for the human inhabitation. People blame the government, government blames the corporate, corporate blame the system, and this blame game is continuing. Everyone is part of this blame game yet no one takes the onus.
This is the not the story of Bangalore alone. Almost all the metros of India passed through the same phase and experienced the same situation. One should be happy Bangalore caught it late and that too the industry which is pollution free, waste free and employs millions to earn their livelihood. The city turned out to be the silicon city of India. It was fortunate that westerner found Bangalore to be the ideal place for them to set up their software IT park mainly because of the weather which suited them. Nevertheless, even the manpower required for the budding industry was concentrated in southern India and Bangalore became the hub of the industry.
Rising price, increasing population, unmanaged city’s infrastructure is obvious when you look at the traffic on the road. Ever increasing number of cars, busses, motorbikes and heavy vehicles are putting more pressure on the city. Software industry might not be polluting the environment but the snarling traffic smoke definitely does that. Anyone would feel pity looking at the traffic police manning the cross road junctions. Prolonged hours of work and pittance payment can not compensate what they are losing everyday masking their mouth and nose to avoid dust and smoke of the passing vehicles. Yet tomorrow is another day.
Everyone is stressed, everyone has problem, everyone is irritated, but nobody thinks how we can solve the problem. Naturally everyone feels solving city’s problem is government’s job. As ideal citizen we feel that we pay the tax to the government and it is responsibility of the government to provide us clean air, clean water, wider roads and so many other things. And as an ideal citizen we just want to utilize all the facility as me only. We are not bothered about others, about our neighbouirs, and about our fellow human beings. Its always me only. Every one talks in terms of I and me only and expects government to take care of all the I’s and me’s.
Be on the road, everyone wants to run past very fast as soon as possible breaking all the traffic norms, signals, dashing another vehicle, and dozing pedestrian. End of the day we all talk about bad traffic system and poor management. We never sit to look our own faults, if only we follow the rules, the system runs, otherwise system breaks. Who is to be blamed?
Like many cities, Bangalore too gets cauvery river water drawn through massive pipelines, yet we lavishly use and waste water without thinking that if one day water is not available what will happen to our life. Do we really think of rationing the water for ourselves? The answer is no. It is government’s job to mitigate the water scarcity.
Garbage disposal and waste management is one of the crucial challenges of the city. City resides on the higher altitude of the land mass. There is no nearing sea or river system to drain out waste. The government is tackling the problem by clearing the garbage and waste and dumping it in a place to decompose it.
The great joke is everyone blames other about littering their place. The fact is any open place is a garbage and waste disposal place for everyone irrespective of it being private property or government property. Elite classes have their pet kept in their house but take them to crap in front of another person’s house. Yet they are the one who complains more about everything.
If we really take a little step to look into our small problems to solve ourselves and let the government solve the bigger problem, we would definitely be improving our life style, conserving our environment and saving for the future. Instead of looking outside, its time to look inside and ask whom should we blame for our plight.
