Infrastructure in Bangalore
Is the capital and the largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It is India's third largest city and fifth largest metropolitan area. Modern Bangalore was founded in 1537 CE by Kempe Gowda, a vassal of the Vijayanagara Empire. Kempe Gowda built a mud fort in the vicinity of modern Bangalore. By 1831, the city was incorporated into the British Raj with the establishment of the Bangalore Cantonment. The British returned dominion of the city to the King of Mysore, choosing however, to retain jurisdiction over the cantonment. Therefore, Bangalore essentially became a twin city, with civic and infrastructural developments of the cantonment conforming to European styles of planning. For most of the period after Indian independence in 1947, Bangalore was a B-1 status city, and was not considered to be one of India's "4 major metropolitan cities". The growth of Information Technology in the city, which is the largest contributor to India's software exports, has led to a decadal growth that is second to only that of India's capital New Delhi. The city's roads, however, were not designed to accommodate the vehicular traffic, growing at an average of 8% annually, that prevails in Bangalore.
Early city planning and infrastructure
Within the fort built by Kempe Gowda I, the town was divided into petes or localities such as Chikpete, Dodpete and Balepete, with each area intended for different artisans and tradesman. Markets within the town were divided by the nature of the provisions supplied and services rendered — Aralpete, Akkipete, Ragipete, Balepete and Taragupete sold various provisions while Kumbarpete, Ganginarpete, Upparpete, Nagartharapete catered to services. The town within the fort had two main streets — Chikpete street and Dodpete street. Chikpete street ran east-west and Dodpete street ran north-south. Their intersection formed the heart of the town — Dodpete square. The town within the fort was cordoned by nine gates. The four main gates of the fort were Halasoor (east), Sondekoppa (west), Yelahanka (north) and Anekal (south). Kempe Gowda encouraged the construction of temples and residential areas, known as agraharas within the town. Kempe Gowda I sanctioned the construction of lakes within the landlocked city, to provide for a source of water supply. The city's residential areas further developed under Kempe Gowda II, who built four towers to demarcate Bangalore's boundaries. These towers in the modern localities of Lal Bagh, Kempambudhi Tank, Ulsoor lake, and the vicinity of Ramana Maharshi Ashram . In 1758, Bangalore was given as a jahagir to Haider Ali, Commander-in-chief of the Mysore army. Haider Ali built the Delhi and Mysore gates of the fort and further strengthened it with stone walls. The Lal Bagh botanical garden was established in the city during the reigns of Haider Ali and his son, Tipu Sultan. Caputured by the British after the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War in 1799, Bangalore fell into the dominion of the British Raj. The Diwan of Mysore, Poornaiah, contributed to the development of Bangalore's infrastructure between 1799-1811 CE. He renovated the temple inside the fort and built a choultry for travellers in Tulasi Thota. The British moved their garrison from Srirangapatna to Bangalore in 1831, establishing the Bangalore Cantonment. The officer in charge of the city was known as Huzoor Shirastedar. Sir Mark Cubbon, commissioner of the city from 1834-1861, was responsible for introducing Kannada as the official language and for sanctioning the construction of roads and bridges, as well as setting up the telegraph system in the city .
The South Parade, today known as M.G. Road, became a fashionable area with bars, and restaurants. In his book Bangalore: Scenes from an Indian City, M. N. Srinivas opines that the reasons leading to the haphazzard development of narrow, winding roads around the civilian areas around the cantonment was because the British chose to ignore the development of these areas, which were normally reserved for non-European labourers. The first railway lines between Bangalore and Jolarpet were laid in 1864 under the directives of Cubbon. His successor, Lewan Bentham Bowring (1862–1870) established the first organised law enforcement units in the city as well the sewerage system and the department of Survey and Settlement. In 1862, the Town Municipality of Bangalore was constituted under Act No. XXVI of 1850. The municipality board, comprising two European officials, four local officials and two non-officials met biweekly to discuss matters on the city's sanitation and improvement. The jurisdiction of the municipality included Balepet, Manavarthpet and Halsurpet. The first project of the municipality was the construction of a moat around the ramparts of the old Bangalore fort. In 1866, the municipality installed kerosene lamps on principal streets. A parallel municipality was established in the Bangalore Cantonment in 1862 with Rs. 37,509. The jurisdiction of the cantonment municipality included the Ulsoor division, Southern division, East General Bazaar division, West General Bazaar division, Cleveland Town division and High Ground division. Though the Banagalore town and the Cantonment had separate municipal bodies, they both reported to the President of Bangalore Town Municipality. Despite the establishment of municipal bodies, civic infrastructure in the city did not see considerable improvement. Uncovered drains, some between 10 feet deep by 6 feet wide, were common in the town. Contractors of the municipality subordinated farmers for the removal of filth in the cantonment, which they in turn, used as manure. The efficacy of this agreement was minimal during agricultural seasons. Contractors engaged in building construction employing more than 10 labourers, were required to maintain a latrine for their use and clean it daily.
The bubonic plague of 1897-98 had a dramatic effect on the improvements of sanitation and health facilities. Telephone lines were laid to help coordinate anti-plague operations. To prevent the spread of the epidemic, several unsanitary houses were demolished, and with a lack of manpower to accomplish the demolitions, convicts from the Central Jail were requisitioned . In 1892, the Western extension was formed in the city and sites measuring 30 ft. by 108 ft. were sold, by community. This extension was later named Chamarajendrapet. A similar extension was formed in the north of the city, called Sheshadripuram, after Diwam Sheshadri Iyer. The relieve the city of congestion, two new extensions, Malleswaram and Basavanagudi were formed. New roads were constructed linking the new localities and wards of the city during this time. The Avenue Road, so called because of being lined by trees on either side, was the commercial hub of the city. The B.V.K. Iyengar Road was constructed as a direct tributary of the Mysore Road. The Silver Jubilee park near K.R. Market was laid to commemorate the silver jubilee of the accession of the king of Mysore, Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV in 1927. The road on one side of the park was named Silver Jubilee road and Narasimharaja Road on the other. Anand Rao Circle was laid in honour of the Mysore Diwan, while Sajjan Rao Circle was named after a philanthropist. In August 1948, the Governor General of India, C. Rajagopalachari inaugurated the Jayanagar extension, named after the last ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore, Jayachamrajendra Wodeyar. On July 3, 1949, the industrial suburb of the city was inaugurated by the Maharajah of Myosore and named Rajajinagar . In 1905, Banagalore became the first city in India to be electrified, powered by the hydroelectric plant in Shivanasamudra.
Development after independence
After Indian independence in 1947, the two municipalities of the cantonment and Bangalore town were united under the Bangalore Municipal Corporation Act LXIX (1949) to form a single municipality for the city — the Bangalore City Corporation (BCC). The new corporation consisted of 50 wards and 75 councillors. The first elections to the BCC under adult franchise were held in December 1950, with Congress party candidate R. Anantharaman elected as first mayor of independent Bangalore. The needs of a growing city led to the rapid growth of civic bodies in the city. The BDA Act of 1976 reconstituted and reorganized the City Improvement Trust Board to form the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA), whose objective was to ensure proper planning and development of the metropolitan area . Bangalore's city layout today has various types of "growth poles" , consisting of Markets — K.R. Market, Malleshwaram, Magadi Road, Ulsoor and others, Commercial Centres — Gandhi Bazaar, MG Road, Brigade Road, Commercial streets among others, Industrial layouts — Electronics City, Bharat Electronics Limited layout and HAL Layout, and other socio-economic precursors — Hospitals (Mallya, Bowring and Lady Curson, Vanivilas) and areas of religious and ethnic concentration.
The Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) was constituted in 1968 to supply water to the city and to provide for the disposal of sewage. The Karnataka Electricity Board (KEB) was formed in 1957. Losses in revenues through the mid 1980s and 1990s prompted the Karnataka Legislature to pass the Karnataka Electricity Reforms Act in 1999, which corporatised the KEB into the Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited (KPTCL), with the distribution of Bangalore division vested with the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Limited (BESCOM), which caters to 2.1 million customers in the Bangalore metropolitan area. To cater to the electricity needs of a growing population, BESCOM has sought to commission 11 additional 66/11 KV substations. Over 4,000 distribution transformer centres were added. One survey indicates that 94% of citizens were satisfied with BESCOM's performance. However, Bangalore continues to experience residential and industrial power outages ("load shedding") for as long as 2 to 4 hours a day, while its contemporaries such as Chennai and Hyderabad remain largely free of such outages .
Transport
The Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) was separated from the parent Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation through private sector investment , first making a profit of Rs. 267 million (US$ 5.6 million in 2001-2002. As of 2001, the company operated close to 3000 regular and Pushpak busses and services 2.8 million customers daily. The Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF), a private-public partnership enterprise, was established during the S. M. Krishna administration to coordinate civic improvement and development activities with the BDA and BMP. The BATF, along with other civic bodies identified ten junctions and roads for upgrade and improvement, including the Bannerghatta Ring Road junction, Toll gate junction and the Airport Inner Ring Road Junction.
Under the leadership of Sir Mirza Ismail, Diwan of Mysore, the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), a public sector undertaking was established in Bangalore for the purposes of research and development of fighter aircraft in the 1940s. The HAL operated an airport for test-flights. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) obtained a small piece of land, known as Civil Enclave for the construction of a civil airport terminal in the HAL airport for handling peak-hour traffic of 300 passengers. By 1991, peak-hour traffic to Bangalore had increased to 1,800 passengers, making HAL the fourth busiest airport in the country by 2004 . When a tender was issued in 1991 by the Government of Karnataka for the construction of the Bangalore International Airport, HAL decided to discontinue civil aviation service . This led to a prolonged three way tussle for operational ownership between the HAL, the Government of Karnataka. Construction of the Bangalore International Airport (BIAL) was repeatedly delayed due to a lack of agreement between successive administrations and the private consortium over operational ownership of the international airport and the status of HAL airport upon the completion of construction of the international airport . Clearance for the construction of the US$ 288 million airport was eventually granted in June 2004. The major stakeholders of this project include Siemens, Zurich Airport, Larsen and Tubro consortium, Airports Authority of India and Karnataka State Investment and Industrial Development Corporation. Construction work on the airport began in March 2005.
Bangalore's road network exceeds 3,000 km (1,800 mi) and consists of ring roads, arterial roads, sub-arterial roads and residential streets. The city road network is mainly radial, converging in the centre. The main roads of Bangalore coming into the city include Bellary Road in the north, Tumkur Road and Mysore Road in the west, Kanakpura Road and Hosur Road in the south and Airport Road and Old Madras Road in the east . Many of Bangalore's erstwhile colonial and town streets were developed into commercial and entertainment areas after independence. The B.V.K Iyengar Road became the retail hub of Bangalore, while MG Road, Commercial Street and Brigade Road became important shopping, recreation and corporate areas . Consequently, traffic increased exponentially, especially on MG Road, which forms the main artery for the city's east-west traffic. But for MG Road, other roads in and around the erstwhile Parade Ground remain narrow, winding roads. Bangalore's vehicular traffic has increased manifold, with 1.6 million registered vehiles in the city — the second highest for an Indian city, after New Delhi . The maintenance and construction of roads to address the growing traffic in the city has been a challenge to the BDA and the BMP. Development of the city road infrastructure has revolved around imposing one-way traffic in certain areas, improving traffic flow in junctions, constructing ring roads, bridges, floyers and other grade separators. Six high volume junctions were identified for improvements, through a private public partnership involving corporate sponsors and various state government agencies, such as the Siddapur Road and Hosur Road junction, sponsored by Infosys and the Airport Road and Intermediate Ring Road junction sponsored by the TATAs. Flyovers were constructed in the city to ease traffic congestion. Newer flyovers were planned for the city for 2006 and beyond The construction of flyovers near the Domlur sector was delayed twice while the flyover near the Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology on Bannerghatta Road was also delayed .
Some of the flyovers and one-ways mitigated the traffic situation moderately, however the volume of traffic continues to grow at an annual rate of between 7-10%. Roads near Airport Road and the residential areas in Koramangala were dug up for renovation but have remained in this state for over two years . The Outer Ring Road was initially constructed to ease truck congestion in the city, however the growth of suburbs reduced the positive impact of the ring road . Bangalore Development Authority is laying additional lanes on many of the major roads around Bangalore. The Peripheral Ring Road, expected to be completed in 2007, is designed to be concentric to the Outer Ring Road and covers 108.9 km. The Hosur Road, which connects Bangalore to the Electronics City, is heavily congested and is part of the National Highway (NH7), therefore witnesses heavy truck traffic as well .
Rapid population growth in Bangalore was brought about by the IT and other associated industries, leding to an increase in the vehicular population to about 1.5 million, with an annual growth rate of 7-10% . Bangalore's infrastructural woes have led to protests by students and IT workers in the city . In July 2004 Wipro's CEO Azim Premji threatened to pull his company out of the city unless there was a drastic improvement in infrastructure over the next few years, stating "We do not see the situation (state of Bangalore's infrastructure) improving in the near future" . Ideological clashes between the city's IT moguls, who demand an addressal of the infrastructural problems of the city, and the successive state governments, whose electoral base is primarily rural Karnataka's agricultural workers, are common In 2005, however, the Central and State Governments allocated sizeable funding from their annual budgets towards the improvement of Bangalore's infrastructure.
Roads Safe Infrastructure
is a global road safety campaign aiming to secure political commitment for road traffic injury prevention around the world. The campaign was launched in June 2006 following the publication of the Make Roads Safe report by the Commission for Global Road Safety. The Commission, chaired by former NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, with members including Michael Schumacher, made recommendations for increasing funding levels for global road safety and argued that the international community was ignoring the scale of road deaths – which World Health Organisation statistics show as ranking alongside Malaria and Tuberculosis in terms of global mortality.The Make Roads Safe campaign is coordinated by the FIA Foundation, a road safety NGO, and includes a coalition of public health and road safety organisations as partners. The campaign aims to raise public awareness of the scale of the road injury problem and to present this as a key issue for sustainable development. The Make Roads Safe campaign argues that tackling road injuries is vital for achieving many of the Millennium Development Goals, including targets for child mortality and health and education targets, because of the vital role played by access to roads in delivering these services. The campaign claims that, although the G8 has approved $1.2 billion for new road infrastructure in Africa, only $20 million has been allocated for road safety measures. The campaign argues that at least 10% of this infrastructure budget, and the similar budgets deployed worldwide by the World Bank, regional development banks and other donors, should be dedicated to road safety measures. If this principle was accepted in the case of Africa it would mean $120 million would be available for road safety measures such as safety assessments of road design, enforcement and education strategies.
The Make Roads Safe campaign also calls for a $300 million, 10 year, Action Plan for road safety to build the capacity of developing countries to respond to their own road traffic injury problems.
Make Roads Safe report
The Commission for Global Road Safety’s report: Make Roads Safe – a new priority for sustainable development, published in June 2006, made a series of recommendations for improving the international response to global road traffic injuries. Building on the policy platform provided by the seminal 2004 publication from the World Health Organisation and the World Bank, the World Report on road traffic injury prevention, the Make Roads Safe report focused on ways in which funding to road injury prevention could be increased. The main arguments of the report were that road traffic injuries were a major and growing public health epidemic, on the scale of Malaria and TB – according to WHO figures; that the cost to developing countries in human lives and economic loss (estimated at up to $100 billion a year by the World Bank) required urgent attention and that failing to address road safety in the context of development policies (particularly relating to road infrastructure investment) would impede progress towards achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.
The report set out three key recommendations aimed at increasing political commitment and investment in road safety:
- a $300 million Action Plan, over ten years, to equip developing countries with the sustainable tools to tackle their own road safety problems and to be able to access multilateral sources of funding for road safety;
- a requirement that a minimum 10% of all multilateral donor road infrastructure budgets should be allocated to road safety measures;
- a ministerial level UN summit to chart a course for international cooperation on road traffic injury prevention.
The Make Roads Safe report was endorsed by an Advisory Board including officials, acting in a personal capacity, from the World Bank, OECD, WHO, Asian Development Bank and United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. At the launch, in London, Lord Robertson summarised the findings of the report: ‘to Make Poverty History we must Make Roads Safe’.
Supporters
More than a hundred organisations worldwide are supporting the Make Roads Safe campaign to date, including the Taskforce for Child Survival and Development, based in Atlanta, Georgia; the World Health Organization, the United Nations Environment Programme, the Asia Injury Prevention Foundation, based in Vietnam; and the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), the governing body of world motor sport and the worldwide federation of automobile clubs. Other international partners include Safe Kids Worldwide, US injury NGO Amend.org, Fleet Forum and Bridgestone Corporation. In the UK, where the campaign has been most active to date, supporters include the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), ROADSAFE, Roadpeace, Living Streets (the Pedestrians Association), the RAC Foundation, the Parliamentary Advisory Committee on Transport Safety (PACTS), the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) and Transaid, a development NGO focusing on transport. In India, the Institute for Road Traffic Education (IRTE), a major Indian road safety NGO, is supporting the campaign. In South Africa both the AA of South Africa and road safety NGO Drive Alive are active supporters of the campaign. The European Federation of Road Traffic Victims (FEVR)has also added its support. In the United States organisations endorsing the campaign include the Association for Safe International Travel (ASIRT), the American Public Health Association, the American Automobile Association (AAA), the National Organisation for Youth Safety (NOYS)and the National Road Safety Foundation. National campaigns and activities in support of Make Roads Safe are being run in many countries by automobile clubs and road safety NGOs.
Political and public figures who have offered their support for the aims of the campaign include former NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who launched the campaign in Africa at an event in Cape Town in May 2007, and former US Transportation Secretary, Norman Mineta. In September 2006 President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica endorsed a key aim of the campaign when he signed a Decree requiring at least 10% of road infrastructure investment in Costa Rica to be allocated to road safety. In an Op-Ed article for the Washington Post on 9th September 2006, President Arias called on regional development banks to follow this lead, and also urged support for the proposed $300 Global Road Safety Action Plan proposed in the Make Roads Safe report.
Michael Schumacher, the seven times Formula One world champion, is the representative of Germany on the Commission for Global Road Safety and a strong and vocal supporter of the Make Roads Safe campaign. He promoted the campaign duirng the first UN Global Road Safety Week in April 2007, writing an op-ed piece for the Guardian newspaper. In the UK, cult indie band Dirty Pretty Things supported the campaign, holding special gigs on behalf of Make Roads Safe in London in September 2006 and April 2007 and promoting the campaign on their national tour. The support of the band was in part inspired by a fatal crash in South East England following a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert at which Dirty Pretty Things had played. Three teenage girls who had attended the concert, and two other people, died in the crash. Red Hot Chili Peppers also subsequently endorsed the campaign. Other celebrities backing the campaign have included singer Moby, Barcelona footballers Samuel Eto'o and Lilian Thuram and racing driver Lewis Hamilton.
International objectives
The main objective of the campaign in 2007 is to work to secure a strong United Nations resolution on global road safety when the UN General Assembly debates the issue during its 62nd session. In particular, the campaign is calling on the UN to sponsor the first ever global Ministerial conference on road safety. To promote this objective, the Make Roads Safe campaign has launched a global petition which has so far attracted more than half a million signatures.
The campaign was launched in June 2006, just prior to the G8 summit in St Petersburg. Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, together with Max Mosley, President of the FIA, held meetings with senior Russian government officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov to impress on them the need for G8 governments to include consideration of road safety in the context of progress on development in Africa, particularly because infrastructure had been a major theme of the Gleneagles G8 in 2005. Then British Prime Minister Tony Blair offered his support for inclusion of road safety in a future G8 communique in a letter to Lord Robertson, a position endorsed by then UK development Secretary Hilary Benn MP. The campaign is working to influence G8 countries through contacts with Governments and through involvement in policy processes, such as the Infrastructure Consortium for Africa, SSATP and NEPAD. The Make Roads Safe campaign is also seeking to influence United Nations agencies, the development banks and development NGOs to recognise the scale of the road injury epidemic facing developing countries. The first United Nations Global Road Safety Week (23-29 April 2007) provided a major platform for promoting the messages of the campaign and raising general awareness of the scale of road injury worldwide.
Online campaigning
The Make Roads Safe campaign is running an online petition via its website which supporters can sign up to. Organisations and companies are also encouraged to sign up via the website. The campaign sells t-shirts, wristbands and campaign badges via the website.
Criticism
Some critics have argued that this initiative is car-centric, and does not focus on the problems inherent in the way road traffic is organised today. They say representatives for the environmentally benign and healthy forms of transport, are not represented in the board, nor has advice and knowledge about those modes of transport been heeded. The Make Roads Safe campaign has responded to this criticism by arguing that the main beneficiaries of a greater focus on road safety and safer infrastructure design will be vulnerable road users (including pedestrians and cyclists) who account for the majority of road injuries in developing countries. Billions of dollars are being invested in new and upgraded road infrastructure in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Make Roads Safe campaign argues that this development aid should be invested with the safety and mobility needs of all road users in mind.
No comments:
Post a Comment