B’luru’s civic issues crying for attention

There is nothing which hits a conscientious citizen more than civic apathy, especially in a cosmopolitan hub like Bengaluru with a teeming population of young and aspiring professionals who work day and night and expect facilities to be as perfect as possible.

So when one hears that a young woman had been killed and her daughter injured after an electric pole and a tree came crashing down on them, one can’t help wondering about the level of alertness of our civic agencies and public utilities to the pressing needs of the city.

It has been a deficit monsoon this year but there have been heavy rains off and on and that might have led to the tragedy right in the heart of the city.

That however cannot in any way absolve the authorities concerned of the blame for not doing enough to identify and remove weak trees and also ensure that electric poles can withstand strong winds.

Only a full-fledged inquiry can identify the reasons which led to this incident so that the guilty can be punished.

Bengalureans still recollect with shock the episode in May this year when a young girl was trapped in her car in a flooded underpass in the city and died.

It hurts more when young and innocent people are made to suffer for no fault of theirs and the May incident was one such happening. We have not had many cases of flooding of residential localities or low-lying areas this year primarily because the rains have been scanty but one cannot rule out heavy rains in the month of October when the North-East Monsoon hits the city.

Are we adequately prepared for the full onslaught of the second monsoon or is there a disaster in the making like it happened last year?

City residents have not forgotten the nightmare of having to remain indoors for days waiting for the water to recede after the unusually heavy rain in OctoberNovember, 2022.

Or the ordeal of having to travel in boats and bullock carts to reach the airport which was also not spared by the deluge. Even posh residential layouts bore the brunt - a pointer to the fact that a lot more needs to be done to make the city less flood-prone.

Bengaluru no doubt sorely misses an elected civic body with the tenure of the last BBMP Council ending in 2020. Moves are on to conduct the civic elections but we will have to wait and watch how long this will take.

In the meanwhile, Bengalureans will have to rely heavily on the new government in the state and civic officials for any assistance to make the city a more livable place.

The question they will obviously be asking is whether enough has been done to fill up the potholes on the roads which seem to be increasing as the rains gain pace; or have the trees been trimmed so that old and fragile branches do not come crashing down on their heads during a gale?

There are many other issues waiting for solutions - like the blocked storm water drains and rajakaluves, the erratic power supply, badly-lit streets and the not so perfect public transport system.

With its entire focus on the implementation of the five poll guarantee schemes, it is not surprising that the Siddaramaiah government has not been able to devote enough attention to cityspecific problems.

However, those in the government are also acutely aware that being a global Information Technology hub, anything which happens in the city - good or bad - grabs immediate attention which makes it all the more necessary to attend to problems crying for solutions urgently.

Senior politicians, and elected representatives will have to put their heads together and come up with a plan to prevent emergencies of the kind which happened on Monday evening snuffing out a life, so that such unfortunate incidents can be avoided in future.