My Bangalore

Torrential rains over the last couple of days have left the city of Bangalore soaked. Once again, lack of drainage has left low lying parts of the city submerged. Suresh heblikar is an environmentalist from Bangalore. He squarely blames the mess at utter lack of planning and environment standards. I agree.

Kalyan Varma is a blogger from the Bangalore. He has a post titled I'm in Venice.

The Bangalore of the late 80s and the early 90s will always have a special place in my heart. The city was (is) called the garden city. Back then, the IT boom was just happening. Bangalore was not on the "radar" yet. The city had a charm to it. The weather was always pleasant and the heart of the city was lined by beautiful tall trees. Gardens you could walk in. Lakes you could admire. Small restaurants here and there that served some delicious South Indian food and that heavenly filter coffee.

That is then. This is now. IT has transformed this once charming city into a bustling business hub. Today, Bangalore is responsible for a third of the annual $17.2 bn software export. This success story has a sad side to it. Lop sided planning and city development. The city just couldn't cope up with the amount of people and the business that came in. Today, traffic jams, pollution and water scarcity have become an every day affair. Once upon a time, the city had over 200 lakes. That now stands at 60.

It is always heartening to know that there are folks who are doing something about it. Suresh Heblikar is part of a Bangalore afforestation and transformation effort in Koodlu and Koramangla. These projects are being carried out with the help of the Indo-Norwegian Environment Programme.

In the hope that there will be more Suresh Heblikars and that one day we will all get our Bangalore back.

Quote of the day
"Environment must not be a fashion; it must rather be a passion"~Suresh Heblikar