Battered Bengaluru

[1]

It is the same story after every rain - potholed roads, uprooted trees and overflowing drains. Only this time, the heaps of garbage along almost every street add to the citizens’ woes. And every time, the city gets only a knee-jerk response by the authorities concerned. When will Bengaluru get its act together, asks Amit S. Upadhye

As the city woke up to a chilly, wet Thursday morning, people again prepared to face longer queues of traffic and a slippery, more bumpy ride than usual on the roads as they had done on Wednesday. They were not disappointed as Bengaluru lived up to their expectations with rain battering it nearly all through the day under the influence of Cyclone Nilam which entered the state Thursday morning.
But the government holiday kept the roads less busy than on Wednesday when they were far more congested with the garbage, ongoing construction work and broken footpaths adding to the chaos. As people pulled out their woollies and battled on, cursing the poor condition of the roads, incidents of road rage were reported from all major roads as vehicles broke down or were stuck in potholes hidden under rain water flooding them.

The traffic police found it hard to manage the traffic despite deploying more staff on the roads as signals stopped operating in some areas , making it neccessary for it to manually regulate the long lines of cars and buses.

Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic), M.A Saleem said the large number of private vehicles that came out on the roads as a result of the rain increased the traffic congestion. “When it rains commuters who otherwise travel in two-wheelers come out in their cars. In fact, there was no space left for parking at the City Civil Court Complex and cars had to be parked on K.G. Road on Wednesday,” he added.

Civic experts blamed the BBMP for the chaos in the city. “It’s a consequence of multiple problems that have grown over the last few years. For instance the drains which carry rain water have cemented surfaces that dont allow percolation of rain water. Also, the garbage on the streets enters the storm water drains when it rains and blocks them, leaving the roads flooded, and this in turn disrupts the traffic,” said urban planner and founder of Gubbi Labs, H S Sudhira, also pointing out that hardly any road in the city can be utilised fully due to the potholes. "When it rains most traffic moves to the centre of the road to avoid its damaged portions,” he noted

Bengaluru: Cyclone Nilam which entered the state Thursday morning, is weakening while moving further into Karnataka. The Bengaluru unit of the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), which has been carefully watching the progress of the cyclonic storm for the last four days, observed that it was weakening after passing near Chitradurga Thursday morning.

The Nilam effect saw the GKVK weather station record 100 mm of rain till 8.30 am Thursday and the Bengaluru Bagepalli station, 140 mm of rain.

Director-in-charge of IMD, Bengaluru, B Puttanna explained that cyclonic storms weakened after reaching land due to obstructions like hills, buildings and trees.

“As the cyclone headed in the north-westerly direction towards Chitradruga, parts of the state such as north interior Karnataka and some parts of coastal Karnataka received rainfall on Wednesday and Thursday,” he said, adding that had Nilam moved towards the west coast it could have gained momentum once again. We ca­n, however, expect some more cyclonic storms depending on the activity over the Bay of Bengal,” he said