Posts : Bangalore

Namma Mono - Where are you ?

Vasanth - 27-NOV-2007

BMRC said that it cannot handle Monorail along with Metro. After that there is no update by either BMRCL or state government about the staus such as appointment of a consultant, is it going to be operated on a BOOT or is Government going to build, is BMRCL going to handle this or not etc.. Lot of questions arising about Monorail of Bangalore.

Cities and self rule

silkboard - 27-NOV-2007

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."

Microlevel Traffic Management Needed

Vasanth - 26-NOV-2007

State Government is engaged in just planning comprehensive traffic management plan for Bangalore for years together - Everything is on books - Nothing becoming to force except in very few countable cases. Simply Government is investing on tools such as Blackberry for traffic without any real application of it.

Can we move to make Bangalore either autonomous or as Union Territories

City.Zen - 26-NOV-2007

I am grateful to Tarle for inspiring me to write this. Some ex-CMs in the past did express their desire to transform Bangalore into a Singapore. What made Singapore what it is today, a role model for all cities and countries?

Why does the State Govt. want to be a vegetables vendor?

City.Zen - 24-NOV-2007

There is a Saphal outlet located in a single storied building on a sprawling site in 8th Block Koramangala, selling vegetables, etc. I believe there are many such outlets all over the city. Questions: (1) Why is the Govt. so eager to run a business?

Manivannan’s here to stay; sorry, Shimoga

GVK - 21-NOV-2007

As a Mysorean my first thought on learning of the fall of the Yeddyurappa government was, “Manivannan won’t have to move, after all”. His transfer order to Shimoga would have been given effect had Mr Y survived Monday’s assembly session. Mysore municipal/MUDA commissioner Mr Manivannan would have moved to Shimoga, Mr Y’s native place.

But then no one could have guessed that the man sworn in a week earlier as CM would find himself unemployed so soon. I had signed off an earlier post (as a lark) with a wishful sentence – A dramatic turn of events on the day of reckoning may hold an answer to the prayers of public spirited Mysoreans.

Airlines, staff want existing airports to stay

silkboard - 20-NOV-2007

As per this story in Business-Standard:

"... lobbying to prevent closure of the existing facilities — at the Airport Authority of India’s Begumpet airport in Hyderabad and HAL airport in Bangalore — has got louder"

CTTP Bangalore - Still some weaknesses

Naveen - 19-NOV-2007

Whilst this is obviously an elaborate study, the recommendations for Mass Transit systems still raises a few questions :

Following sarkaari projects

silkboard - 18-NOV-2007

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.

Quick Fix Grade Separators

tsubba - 16-NOV-2007

Anybody know more about this? Quick-fix solutions for traffic snarls (ToI)