Friday, February 20, 2009
pune from pensioner's paradise to pollution hell
This year Pune city did not have any winter at all!! We did not have to use any sweaters or blankets!! My mind goes back to the year 1993 when we first moved here! The climate was so good we did not have to use a ceiling fan except for a month or so in the month of may. I did not see any air coolers or air conditioners anywhere! now the situation is such that my apartment complex which has 200 residents can now boast of at least 100 a/c's vying with each other in using up power. Electricity aha now we moved to pune from visakhapatnam where we had to suffer power cuts of 4 to 5 hours every day in 1991-92So moving to pune where there was an abundance of water and power was a wonderful experience to us.But the last 15 years I'm very sorry that the infrastructure has deteriorated so badly that we have power cuts, poor water supply and woeful traffic conditions.Comparatively Visakhaptnam now boasts of excellent roads better power situation and more greenery now thanks to better and visionary governance.So Pune And Puneris wake up before it is too late and your city starts looking like a concrete jungle.the need here would be better public transport(please no experiments such as BRTS) and awareness among people to use fewer vehicles.Also the city needs better planning in the sense that residential and commercial areas need to be located separately to avoid chaos in front of every apartment complex due to the presence of shops.
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The perception you have is probably common among the Puneris, but it needs to be corrected. I need to see the Pune BRTS but I can visualise what all may have gone wrong. First and foremost reason is that before the all the details were conceived, iteratively anticipating probable problems and addressing them before implementation stage began, due to impending enforcement of Code of Conduct before the Municipal Elections, BRTS Pune went on stream. I understand it is still overcoming that.
ReplyDeleteThere are Moror Car lobbies, Two wheeler lobbies, Metro lobbies and Monorail Lobbies and over all these, the politicians and bureaucrats who have something substantial to loose - an opportunity would be lost to them. Media is also a great beneficiary if these lobbies need to advertise. A successful BRTS is likely to reduce such advertisements significantly.
Have faith in BRTS because that is the only solution, besides bicycling and walking that is sustainable and help in making Pune a paradise it once was and still is in many parts.
Sudhir Badami (sudhirbadami@gmail.com)