As the city welcomes a new year and a new decade, Bengalureans are hoping for some big and small changes: from the completion of big infrastructure projects to the protection of the city’s environment.
Integrated mobility plan
Karnataka : Bengaluru : 18/11/2019 : Traffic jam at Millers Road and infront of Cantonment Railway during nomination file for by election in Bengaluru on Monday 18 November 2019. Photo : Sudhakara Jain / The Hindu.
Will there be respite from traffic jams in 2020? The vehicle population in the city has already crossed 83 lakh, indicating that many continue to rely on private modes of transport.
There has been a demand for a robust suburban rail network for years, but the matter is still pending before the Central Cabinet for final approval. Mobility experts are now hoping that the special purpose vehicle would get required financial support from both centre and state government.
Meanwhile, the extended metro line on Kanakpura Road and Mysuru Road will be operational by 2020. If BMRCL delivers its promise, it will help lakhs of citizens make the shift to public transport. The Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) is also expected to operate 6,000 electric buses in a phased manner and reduce existing fares.
Revival of waterbodies
Karnataka Bengaluru 27/12/2019 MEG Battalion cleaning Ulsoor Lake in Bengaluru on Friday. Photo Sampath Kumar G P /THE HINDU
The government and its agencies were repeatedly pulled up by the NGT for the state of the highly-polluted Bellandur and Varthur lakes, and the city hopes that words translate into action for a better future for these lakes this year.
The BBMP, which now has 37 more lakes under its purview in addition to 169 lakes, is hoping for involvement from citizens and corporates to help revive and maintain the city’s waterbodies. Setting up of STPs and removal of encroachments around lakes are basic steps that need to be taken. Citizen participation in the revival processes, which has reaped rich results in the cases of Puttenahalli and Kaikondarahalli lakes, could also help bring back the city’s keres to their glory days.
New garbage tenders, visual cleanliness
The city needs the BBMP to put in place the new garbage tenders that envisage separate collection of different streams of waste. Also, there needs to be a bigger push towards segregation of waste at source, which will make decentralised processing possible.
With increased segregation and decentralised processing, the civic body will also be able to rely less on landfills and quarry pits.
Completion of pending projects
The city has many long-pending projects that urban experts hope will finally take off, such as the Peripheral Ring Road and Satellite Township Ring Road (STRR).
While the Cabinet has approved PRR, the BDA is also looking at raising funds through regularising encroachments on over 5,000 acres of its lands across 69 layouts, which will be used for PRR. The NHAI has promised financial assistance for STRR. A section is also hoping the 102 km elevated corridor network is scrapped.
More green cover
BENGALURU - KARNATAKA - 20/01/2019 : Namma Metro train pass by (Pink Flowers) Tabebuia, an exotic tree native to South America, in full bloom on M G Road, Cubbon Park and across the city, painting the IT city with pink colour flowers, in Bengaluru on January 20, 2019. Photo: K. Murali Kumar / The Hindu
Over 3,500 trees slated to face the axe to make way for ‘development projects’.
In 2019, active citizens were successful in getting the government to scrap or put on the backburner many big ticket projects that threatened huge loss of green cover. Objections have already started pouring in for new proposals. Bengalureans hope to play a key role in ensuring that governance does not forget to factor in environmental concerns while planning infrastructure projects. The city will also hope that the long-pending tree census will take off this year.
Boost in police-public relationship
Bengaluru: Girls and women offer rose flowers to police during a protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Register of Citizenship (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR), in Bengaluru, Thursday, Dec. 26, 2019. (PTI Photo/Shailendra Bhojak) (PTI12_26_2019_000084B)
The Bengaluru police needs more personnel to be on a par with the increasing population. This will bring down stress level and reduce additional workload of the ground level police personnel.
The special units of the city police need to focus more on drug menace and cyber crimes that pose challenges to the force. To bring transparency and boost police-public relationship, more community policing initiatives should be implemented.
Traffic management is another area of concern with the traffic police having minimal force and struggling to ensure the smooth flow of traffic. Better coordination with civic agencies will improve the traffic condition in the city.
