This year, in Bengaluru ,we have had one of the heaviest rainfall in the recent past . Time and again roads were converted into rivers . Many residents have had pathetic time negotiating rainwater rushing into their homes.
Poor planning and corrupt administration has been completely exposed by the condition of the roads . Yet no one seems to be be held accountable for the condition of the pathetic roads. Motorists and pedestrians are having a tough time commuting in bengaluru and yet no civic body has assured any help and no authority or no person is held responsible for the chaos on the city roads .
Over the years, i have made hundreds of representations to civic authorities (BBMP) and elected representatives (From corporators to MLA) . Have met commissioners , Mayors. MPs, MLA and even two chief ministers . One common thing among every person in authority is that they are all ever busy and no one is responsible (neither a solution) for the problem at hand.
No person in authority wants to talk about the problem at hand. The political authority blames on bureaucratic authorities and vice versa.
Take the case of a pothole on the road. To start with, if the authorities had done their job properly and if they were competent enough, there should not have been any pothole in the first place . But as it stands today, Bengaluru roads has 30,000 potholes on record. It is shameful on the authorities to have actually given out such a number. Looks like they are proud to publish their inefficiency and incompetency. 75 years of independence and we cannot lay a 1 km of pothole free road. Yet what is important today is beef and not roads.
Coming back to potholes on roads , On the bureaucratic side there are the following people responsible to either have laid a better road or at least fix the damage. It starts from the ward engineer, You have a junior engineer, Then you have the Assistant engineer, You have the assistant executive engineer, Then comes executive engineer, Then is the superinedentent engineer, On top comes a chief engineer, On top of him is Engineer in chief. Parallel to these people there is Executive engineer (Road works), Executive engineer (Major roads). On top of all these people comes the steel frame of the administration It starts from the assistant commissioner , Then is the Deputy commissioner, on top of him is the additional commissioner, Then we have Joint commisioner, Then is the special commissioner and on top is the commissioner. Over all these commisoners sits the development commissoner , with him sits the joint secretary (Urban development), with him is the additional secretary (Urban development), Over them sits the Secretary (Urban development). On him sits the additional chief secretary and top of them all sits the Chief secretary. Technically this line can be extended to secretaries in the union government as well all the way till cabinet secretary. All of them have the authority but none of them are accountable , answerable and not even accessible.
Coming to political side , the line of responsibility and accountability starts from the corporator or the councillor of the area, then comes the MLA, The mayor of the city , Then is the MP, Then is the urban development minister and on top of all sits the chief minister . Technically this can be extended all the way till PM. Again all of them have the authority but none of them are accountable , answerable and not even accessible.
Ask any of the above people on who is responsible for the pathetic condition of the Benagluru roads , the unanimous answer will be “NOT ME”. All the above authorities get the best cars, get drivers, fat pay , carry the best phone, Have personal secretaries and so on but no one is accountable nor answerable. According to the present system and the so called rank and file of our administrative set up no one in the above set of authorities is responsible for the pathetic roads in the city. If by your misfortune you end up hurting yourself or others while doing the misadventure of riding on the city roads, you are a negligent driver but the road is world class.
One set of political leadership is busy with pleasing their bosses in the center and the other class is busy worshipping their leader. Misplaced priorities has been the hallmark of the indian political system over the last two decades. Present leadership is more about PR and creating controversies than any real ground work. Unseen Ram (I am sure he does not need a temple), beef , celebrating birthdays of freedom fighters is more important than nutrition, roads and hygiene.
Go to the bureaucratic authorities. You must be lucky to find one in the first place . Everyone is very busy but no one is answerable . from top to bottom there is “Sahebru” attitude and status quo is the most favorite passion and perhaps duty of the almost all concerned.
Worst is even disheartening . Elected representatives and civic authorities have gone on rounds in the city and uploading pictures of their inspection of the damage. Some of the comments they have received on their pages are “We are proud of you”, “True leader”, “We need people like you”. Come on , are we any kind of elite democracy ? These are the exact people responsible for the mess and we are here glorifying them just because they had the courtesy of atleast seeing the damage.
The poor citizen is just caught up in this mess . The poor citizen has to just increase his prayers before stepping out of the house . May be the combined effort of our civic authorities and elite politicians has increased the citizen’s faith in God. Perhaps the only other vent for the anguished motorist is his fellow motorist with whom he can pick up a fight and vent out his anger.
