Bangalore X-rayed

Bangalore X-rayed

The Hindu Business Line

The Pensioner's Paradise now bursts with youthful energy... but who will channel it all?

I feel Bangalore is caught in the painful pangs of metamorphosis at the moment. It's unbelievable! When outsiders come in, Bangalore absorbs them, soothes their brashness, perhaps imbues them with its culture. We're going to see a fantastic expression of this new culture over the next ten to 15 years."

That's how unequivocally K. Jaisim, enfant terrible of architecture and long time Bangalorean at 60-plus, couches his stance when asked to x-ray the Karnataka metropolis. Having spent sleepy-eyed vacations here as a child, he has been a Bangalore resident since 1980.

What defines Bangalore today? A city of over eight million people, with just over a third being Kannada-speakers, it hosts 600-plus MNCs, including the IT sector's homegrown giants like Infosys and Wipro.

According to an April 2004 review of the Karnataka economy, its population density stood at 2,978.6 per sq km, including a large pan-Indian influx to service the IT and BPO sector. Though Bangalore's rather ramshackle HAL airport is nothing to write home about (and the proposed alternative at Devanahalli is still a fly in the sky), international air traffic at the IT hub registered a 42.4 per cent increase in the year preceding December 2004.

Zooming land prices

As real estate prices in swank residential areas like Sadashivnagar, Jayamahal Extension and Indiranagar cross Rs 3,000 per sq ft, there are corporate takers aplenty for serviced apartments off posh Lavelle Road at nearly Rs 4,500 per sq ft for a luxury penthouse. As for the eight serviced luxury residences at the top-end Leela Palace Hotel, their clients can afford up to $6,000-10,000 per month, or rooms at an average nightly rent of Rs 8,000-14,000.

Bangalore was originally known for its salubrious weather, laidback citizens and luxuriant greenery. But today, Bangalore's claims to fame include a pollution rate than is among the highest in India, a green cover that is fast vanishing, and a raging debate over its paucity of efficient power, water and transport services over potholed roads.

With a population density of 2978.6 per sq. km (85 per cent literacy rate), according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy Pvt. Ltd., Bangaloreans have daily encounters with potholed roads negatively impacted by over six lakh registered motor vehicles.

How do Bangaloreans gauge their city? Gowri Gopinath, 41, who coordinates the library programme across 32 schools for the Akshara Foundation, notes, "The road traffic has become a nightmare, so has the quality of our air. My colleagues and I are all grappling with skin and respiratory problems. It now takes me 45-50 minutes to get from my home in J.P. Nagar to my work spot on Kamaraj Road on my two-wheeler, from 25 minutes three years ago. We now think twice now about going out in the evenings to visit friends and relatives. Yes, it would help if the long-promised Metro rail project finally comes about."

Noted artist S.G. Vasudev reflects: "Though Bangalore doesn't have a long-time art institution like those in Chennai or Kolkata, its cosmopolitan nature allows for non-hierarchical interactions between artists. That's what I really like here. It has attracted brilliant young people from all fields. But our government has really let us down. Its corruption doesn't allow for improvements in civic infrastructure."

Nostalgia

Balaji Srinivasan, 76, an engineer with a heart for literature and cricket, muses, "About 40 years ago, this was a very liveable city, in which middle-class people like us felt at home. We'd cycle around, perhaps catch an occasional movie in the cantonment area. I knew it would change, but we were not prepared for these concrete monsters. So, Bangalore, for me, is a kind of nostalgia."

Bhushan Oberoi, the restaurateur behind the popular Casa Piccola chain, has a different take. "About 13 years ago, when the IT industry here started to bloom, we could visualize a clear opportunity for Bangalore. But I feel that potential has been squandered."

Pausing, he adds, "The great cities of the west, like London, New York or Rome, are built on great will and pride. Their citizens are willing to protest, hold demonstrations, when necessary. We can no longer afford to be laidback. As Bangaloreans, we need to handle our city with care, not with negligence. Like a glass bowl, not one of stainless steel."

The missing sparrows

Sheila Castelino, who worked for a leading computer maintenance corporation, relocated to Bangalore from New Delhi in December 1975. "If Delhi can sort out its pollution problem, why can't we? Where are our gardens now? All our sparrows have disappeared," she stresses. "What returns are we getting on our taxes?"

But the essential Bangalore surges to the fore through the eyes of Sham Banerjee, one of the top brass at Texas Instruments, who speaks as an individual, "Ten years ago, our excitement was about pioneering options in the IT industry, with access to a world-class resource pool. That's when high bandwidth pipelines were laid out by the west, but access to them was restricted to about one lakh people in the IT industry. Today, about three billion people in the developing world have joined that consumer market via broadband connections and cell phones."

But he finds the city at "a choking point today. Perhaps like Los Angeles, which is close to the edge of destruction. We have to fix what's wrong with Bangalore, or it will be destroyed. People like us, who were part of the excitement of this city, are now having serious thoughts about the quality of life here."

There's a broad truth that most Bangaloreans agree on. That even if the city is renamed Bengaluru, nothing will improve until the crossover point between its positive and negative energy is bridged.

Cityscape

# Major industrial and technological centre in south India

# Fifth largest urban conglomerate in India.

# Area: 368 sq km

# Population: 5.69 million (2001 Census); estimated 7 million at present.

# Economy: Bangalore Domestic Product — Rs 44,400 crore

# Software units — 1,600

# MNCs — 600 (manfacturing and IT)

# Software exports — Rs 37,360 crore (estimated for 2006)

# Literacy — 85 per cent