Bangalore
is the fastest growing city in the country, in Asia or for that matter in the
world are very commonly heard statements about Bangalore these days. As a
Bangalorian staying in the city for nearly five decades would certainly agree
with the fact that the city is growing fast, particularly for past two to two
and a half decade. But
unfortunately the growth as we Bangaloreans know is unscientific
and haphazard. Everybody wants to come to Bangalore
from distant places in the state as well as from far off places in the country
in search of living. As a
result population has grown to the extent of almost
about fifteen times compared to 1955.
Easy
availability of comparatively quite and economical labour and skilled workers,
the city attracted lot of industrialist to start industries. Industrial
growth during the 60s and 70s was at its peak. Then came IT
industry. The city got its title silicon valley. Centre’s liberalised industrial policy gave boost to IT industry.
Bangalore became the choice destination for investments, in view of its
salubrious climate and its topography. Today IT industry in Bangalore is
on the top in the world map. Yes, really Bangalore is developed,
industrially too.
But, the
city has not developed its infrastructure though it has grown vast to an
unimaginable magnitude taking its population to six million. The roads in
the erstwhile city limits have remained to be the same as they were in 50s even
today. The roads in newly added layouts are not wide enough and are not
to the required standards. The roads are not tarred for long and are full
of pot holes and are difficult for monitoring.
The footpaths are not worthy to be called user worthy. The city’s
development, without the development of infrastructure, is not a good sign.
There is no
proper planning for improving the roads which cannot take the present ever
increasing traffic. The traffic has increased abnormally with the growth
of automobile trade and liberalised bank finances. In fact the present
situation it is said, almost every house hold in the city, in most of the
segments, have more than one vehicle. In the 50s one could count the four
wheelers and scooters moving on the roads, unimaginable!
It is said
that in Bangalore there are in all about 21.85 lakhs vehicle running in
Bangalore’s sub standard roads.
Of these 16.06 lakhs are two wheelers. Apart from this every day about
700 vehicles are being added. The reason for such large number of
vehicles is only because of poor and inadequate public transport. In
addition to the fast moving automobile vehicles there are slow moving animal
driven and men driven vehicles like pushing carts, etc, causing congestion and
traffic jams.
With the
addition of 700 vehicles every month the situation will certainly be
grim. We are to some extent now immune to the traffic jams in almost
areas of the city. It is difficult to imagine the road scenes in the next
couple of years. To reach from one end to the other end of the city it
takes not less than two hours. With the annual growth of vehicles population and the bad
roads, the situation does not augur well. But nothing can be
stalled. The people concerned with the development of the city’s
infrastructure only have to rise to the situation and should be able to respond
favourably to the expectation of the citizens. If situation is allowed to
continue in the present state, we may have to look to the almighty
helplessly. Hope that situation will not come.
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