Monday, January 2, 2006
Cleaning up this shit
I went to the railway station yesterday. The tracks were full of shit, literally. It should be no surprise if Bangalore’s next epidemic comes tumbling out of a train.1 Former Chief Minister S M Krishna professed his intention of making Bangalore like Singapore.2 Perhaps he should have started with the railway station.
The more I see of the world, the lesser I regard political rhetoric and local pride.
1. The train in Malaysia also had hole-in-the-floor toilets, with one significant difference: a bottom cap that refused to flush at stations.
2. Why is it that governing decisions in Bangalore are always made by the head of the state, instead of the head of the city, the mayor? Do you even know who Bangalore’s mayor is?
The more I see of the world, the lesser I regard political rhetoric and local pride.
1. The train in Malaysia also had hole-in-the-floor toilets, with one significant difference: a bottom cap that refused to flush at stations.
2. Why is it that governing decisions in Bangalore are always made by the head of the state, instead of the head of the city, the mayor? Do you even know who Bangalore’s mayor is?
sriramb — Jan 2, 2006 11:31:41 AM — # ↩
Amen
Anonymous — Jan 2, 2006 11:45:39 AM — # ↩
"Why is it that governing decisions in bangalore are made by head of state..."...that's probably because most of the financial power is with the state government..inspite of the grandiose Part X(or Part XI i forget which) of the Constitution which mandates devolution of fiscal, financial and functional muscle to urban/village local bodies. This ideal still remains only on paper. Even karnataka lags behind on this even tho (i believe) it has enacted a legislation in this regard. So no money means the mayor can't make any changes to bangalore city. Only the state government has the money to carry out the changes.so the cm is the guy who is always in the headlines.
-Vibin
Ps:Ironically i think the only function which has been devolved to the urban local bodies is solid waste disposal:-)which is why in many areas of the city you have the local municipal man coming around to collect your garbage.
mike_higher — Jan 2, 2006 1:36:54 PM — # ↩
.. is Begum Mumtaz. I think she got elected last month or something. I really don't know if the mayor has jurisdiction over the railway properties though? It would probably be lalu's domain.
I agree with you on the usage of train loos, but I think it is a general lack of civic sense. We find people who happily urinate on the walls of the Sulabhs and Nirmalas, rather than pay the 50p.
I believe in the '60s Singapore was very much like this, and the govt there introduced the fine systems & civil service sentence regimen which was implemented with absolute authority. That took some 12 years to really become part of the local culture.
Its time we did similar things. I believe Surat went through such a fine based civic sense system which has massively turned around the system since the Plague scare.
shortindiangirl — Jan 3, 2006 3:38:40 AM — # ↩
Interesting idea. What's the process to get it accomplished for Bangalore ?
latelyontime — Jan 2, 2006 4:58:34 PM — # ↩
thaths — Jan 2, 2006 9:35:33 PM — # ↩
Eh?
latelyontime — Jan 2, 2006 11:53:23 PM — # ↩
lawgon — Jan 3, 2006 1:07:37 PM — # ↩
nakulshenoy — Jan 4, 2006 1:29:50 PM — # ↩
Whether you are inside the train, or outside of it, the tracks seem to have only one purpose (other than to let trains pass on).
As they say, shit happens.
And it happens only in India. Sadly.