No respite from heat for Bengalureans

Bengaluru has suffered under the longest dry spell this summer with the month of March having no rains and several predictions of rains during April not coming true despite passage of half the month.

The city which once served as a summer retreat for people from surrounding states, is now witness to exodus of its denizens at every available opportunity.

One such possibility stares into its eyes around the polling day i.e., April 26, a Friday.

With April 27 and 28 being second Saturday and Sunday, one fears the summer-weary residents may opt to travel out to hills clubbing the three days free from work.

How would this impact the turnout for polling is an imponderable. The city experienced its hottest day on April 6 with temperature soaring to 37.6 degrees Celsius.

This, according to the IMD station at Bengaluru, was the third-maximum temperature in the last 15 years for the month of April and the highest in the last eight years.

The hottest day the city has witnessed so far had occurred in April 2016 when the temperature soared to an unprecedented 39.2 degrees Celsius.

While the temperatures have not been unusually high in the city during April so far, for an average resident, the perception of heat is getting abnormal year after year due to rise of concrete structures, paving of 98% of ground, decline of greenery from over 75% in 1970s to less than 10% now and vanishing of water bodies.

Heat radiated from walls warms up neighbouring homes and aggregates the living experience. The pace of development does not provide much hope.

It is for City fathers to think of how the salubrious olden days could be brought back to its inhabitants.