The BBMP and the BDA share a combined yen for turning Hebbal into Hokkaido, and that’s like, totally awesome; who knows, keep that up and maybe Bengaluru will mutate into Tokyo.
Veena Stores will be handing out chopsticks with vadas and cherry blossoms will bloom in Cubbon Park before that happens, but meanwhile, let’s look at the final nail in our city’s coffin, in a manner of speaking. Where does this latest lunacy spring from, this folly of constructing a steel bridge at a piffling cost of 1800 cr not to mention the collateral damage by way of 500 trees.
Circa1976, a sensible bureaucrat came up with the Karnataka Tree Act; we now have far smarter safari-suits coming up with innovative methods to circumvent it. That is progress.
What is the problem? Illasaar, we are not allowed to cut more than 10 trees…Hmm, don’t worry, does the Act say anything about the number of roads? No, lovely, then just find ten roads with five trees per road and adjust maadi.
A smart city would conduct a detailed cost-benefit analysis using the expertise of men of steel with sound domain knowledge of large infrastructure projects, or appoint town planning experts with the necessary qualifications to take decisions based on the greater common good.
We, on the other hand, have a drain inspector playing with the remnants of his son’s Meccano set; that worthy having long since ditched the toy in favour of an iPhone6?
If you found that harsh, I have two words for you: magic box. Attempting to fly before learning to walk is a national obsession from which no amount of finger-wagging on the fate of Icarus, whose waxed wings melted in the heat of the sun, will deter us.
As per the original proposal, the flight path for this 6.9-kmsteel miracle was Basaveshwara Circle to Hebbal via Sankey Road to LRDE complex. The project was initially shelved due to land acquisition issues, since it involved Palace land, currently under SC orders and part of the historic Balabrooie House, which as the alert reader would recall, was recently rescued from becoming a Legislators Club.
Assuming (a**+u+me) all goes smoothly and we are flying over come 2018, it is unclear how precisely this will solve the decongestion problem of Bengaluru in general and Hebbal in particular? Let me re-frame the question: why are we obsessed with looking for hi-tech, hi-falutin' solutions to basic infrastructure problems when the world has shifted to simple and cost-effective? What if the Rs 2000 cr were instead deployed towards a high-speed rail link to the airport?
Trains run on dedicated tracks at fixed intervals and allow us to plan our schedules with far greater accuracy. Look at Kuala Lumpur: it’s better than the X-Files!
Say you took the steel bridge, got stuck in traffic and reached KIAL panting and breathless only to discover that your flight has left without you on board. This is not a good time to say to the smirking counter staff, “Why couldn’t you hold the flight for me? Don’t you know I’m a VVIP who has come here in a Maybach on a Rs 2000 cr flyover?”
They will have no option but to say with steely resolve, “Sir, if you just get back in your Maybach and continue flying over you may reach Chennai before 6E-262, but I wouldn’t count on it.”
The writer is a gourmet, travel writer and actor
