Car Pool maadi!

                I was on my way to office this morning listening to my favorite RJ Rachna. She said something that pushed up my eyebrows. She said Bangalore traffic police are now back to promoting Carpooling, because the traffic has drastically increased in last few weeks & they were finding it difficult to manage. I was in disbelief because I realized it wasn’t just me feeling that the traffic was getting worse in the last few days. I had thought it was probably just in the route I was travelling in or maybe I was getting impatient.

                Now that I knew it wasn’t just me experiencing this, I was wondering what could be inducing this increased pain to travel in the city. Just think about it for a minute, the roads haven’t become smaller in these weeks neither has our government suddenly taken up road work all over the city. So it has to be the vehicle volume or driving style. Has everyone in the city suddenly developed good road sense or has everyone lost it completely? Neither is true. So it has to be the vehicle volume. People have either suddenly become rich & started taking out their own vehicles instead of using office/public transport or most offices have changed their timings to let out a whole lot more people on the roads. We of course know the latter is only imaginative.

                Is it the job market that is on a new high? Or is it bonus & pay hike time already? Either of the cases if the earnings have increased, shouldn’t one be directing it in more wise investment avenues than wasting it on fuel & jamming up the city? Seriously, I see now value in using a super large SUV or Innova or a cool looking sedan or even a small 800 for the convenience of a single person. And I am ready to argue that it is not cool or makes one be seen as ‘Bade Saab’, it might have been that way a few decades ago but not now, not anymore.

                I appreciate the traffic police thinking out of the old school minds to make the city better, but will it work? Will, people who use cars for self-esteem agree to share their pride of driving? It is in the hands of each of us to bring out a more peaceful living city from an extremely stressful one. I urge to fully support the BTP in this move & will avoid driving alone to the utmost possible extent, will you?

       Stating in the lingo all of are very used to 'Saar, please car pool maadi' :)

BJP. Development. Authority!!

                 Well planned layouts with streamlined water & power network, structured roads system and distinctive flyover designs. These were what BDA used to be identified by. Few of the most revered residential layouts of the city such as RMV, Koramangala, JP Nagar etc. are feathers to its cap. While most state Government run bodies including BBMP & even the state government itself is being caught pants down on corruption & for failing to fulfill owned responsibilities, BDA was one which bore the torch of hope to public. But little did we realize it wasn’t too far behind in the line. It is now in the league & with such high velocity! Starting with Arkavathy layout mess & now pouring even deeper in Kempegowda Layout goof-up.

                You might have already read in the papers about the new soup BDA is in. Here is a quick recap. For the new ‘NadaPrabhu Kempegowda Layout’ it had notified & was ready to acquire about 4K acres of land. And with all the infamous ‘Denotifications’ games our ministers have played, this process of acquiring land was on snail’s pace. Funnily enough though, BDA has now reached the stage of calling in for tenders & giving out contracts for developmental work. Even better ingredient in the drama is that the land hasn’t yet been acquired at all! Not even half! It only has about 1.3K acres of land in its name and there are about 50 pending cases in the court for rest of the land. The act doesn’t stop here, like icing on the cake and something that concerns we the citizens even more, is the amount BDA wanted to spend to make roads in this yet to exist layout!.

                A tender was called for, to make roads, and the estimate drawn was about 1000 Crores (950 odd). This by itself, most of us would argue, is an inflated figure & would include all the ‘Under the table’ feedings too. But now when the contract is being given out (BTW, for making roads on land that doesn’t yet exist!) the project cost has been restated to 2200 Crores! Yeah 2.2K Crores, doesn’t your heart skip a beat? Within a matter of few months inflation has acted 120% plus on road building costs! This is moving towards being mother of all scams in the state. Given the fact, that the state government has poked its nose & even transferred the engineer who opposed the deal, would one be pushed to agree to the voice that BDA is trying to pull in more money to fund the soon coming state elections?

                Sushma Swaraj had recently called CBI as Congress Bachao Institution since it had done stuff that favored the Congress government. I am not being any party supporter here, but by the principle of Sushma Aunty, shouldn’t we now call BDA as BJP Development Authority for trying to loot our money & fund the party for elections?

I am too scared now to even say ‘God save our country’. If I am loud a new layout plan will be made & more money pulled off to bribe GOD, to not save our country & to stockup more money for the CBIs & BDAs. Or for all you know, I might be banned from using internet or put to jail for voicing.