Liveability index hits Bengaluru hard

Imagine Bengaluru, the dream city for many youngsters, being categorised along with Lagos, capital of Nigeria in faraway Africa far down on the Liveability index by a research unit of The Economist group.

This is something most Bengalureans would find difficult to digest but the bare truth is out: We have the poorest infrastructure and our roads, public transport, energy supply, water and housing availability are nowhere near what most cities across the world have to offer.

Amid the spanking new IT hubs, spiralling residential complexes and famed green spaces, the roads, broken and dotted with potholes- are definitely an eyesore which the authorities make it a point to set right hurriedly each time an adverse report is published but the packed-in stuff comes off even before you have had a couple of rides on the road.

Water supply is reduced to a trickle though the situation seems better this year because of unseasonal rains while power goes on and off as irregularly as it can giving people the feeling that the transformers have a mind of their own!

What ails our city is a question which keeps popping up in the mind of residents after reading such reports. Bengaluru wears a shabby look all through from the Central Business District to the outer fringes which were once villages, with the trees never trimmed in time and the drains disappearing beneath piles of slush and mud causing flooding on roads.

Has the city become too unwieldy because of its burgeoning population and the sudden extension of its borders about 15 years ago when more than 100 villages were included to form the BBMP? Is it time to think of decentralised governance at least for the sake of better administration and planning? The BBMP has several zones no doubt but attending to problems in far-flung areas, sometimes 10 km apart, is something most civic officials would not dare to even think of.

There is no civic body for Bengalureans to run to in case of problems with the BBMP polls getting delayed and most of them at the mercy of officials who never venture out of their cocoons of comfort unless forced to do so with the ubiquitous bribe. And all this is happening in a city which exports more than Rs 2 lakh crore in software products and services.

Wherever an uproar happens over the civic mess, there is a flurry of activity and makeshift measures are implemented –but they do not last long and people are getting tired of the unending wait at traffic signals because of the traffic mayhem and backbreaking journeys.

This is a city where citizens work hard and would love to take their time off in the weekends to enjoy the fruits of their toil which is sadly not happening because of pathetic infrastructure. A city will improve only when its people lend a hand and Bengalurans have always been more than willing to contribute their share to make the city a worthy place to live in.

Only a coordinated effort by resident organisations, civic officials and elected representatives at the local level can transform the city from its pitiful state. And it’s only then that we will stop getting grim reminders that our lovely city ranks nowhere among the top destinations in the world.