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Forty years ago, Bangalore was a paradise. Today, the green avenues and lakes are WHEN Sohrab Mistry settled in Bangalore 20 years ago, his new home did not have any ceiling fans. Bangalorean Tara Joseph always went to church bundled up in her cashmere coat. As for Anand Gowda, cycling to college, to a friend’s home, or to the cinema was the quickest means of transport in the city. The three still live in Bangalore, but they no longer recognise their city. Joseph’s cashmere coat has not been aired for more than nine years. Mistry has had to fit an AC in his bedroom, and Gowda finds cycling so challenging now that he no longer dares to deploy his rusty bike.
Forty years ago Bangalore was a paradise, with its tree-lined roads, flower-laden traffic islands and, more importantly, a comfortable climate. "We wore cardigans in June," recalls Elizabeth Menezies (59), an Anglo-Indian school teacher. Today, little remains of all that. The temperate climate, green avenues and the string of tanks and lakes are fast disappearing into smoggy nothingness. A deadly cocktail of development and urbanisation has translated into increased vehicular traffic, skyrocketing carbon dioxide emission levels, a burgeoning population and mushrooming corporate and residential buildings. The drying up of lakes and denuding of the green cover has led to a dramatic change in the city’s climate. Scientists at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, who have been monitoring the growth of the city, its temperature and rainfall over a period of nearly 20 years, have the most dismal statistics to prove that Bangalore’s temperate climate will soon be history. The study by a team, published in the September, 2009, issue of the International Journal of Geoinformatics, shows that the mean temperature of the city has increased by about 2 degrees centigrade in the past two decades. Using space-borne remote sensing equipment, temperatures were monitored by TV Ramachandra, K Uttam and their team of researchers. The study was conducted between 1990 and 2009. Says Ramachandra: "The annual mean has gone up between 1.5 to 2.5 degrees in some areas." The analysis also showed a positive correlation between the increase in paved surfaces and land surface temperature. According to the report, "as much as 466 per cent increase in paved surfaces has led to the increase in temperatures by about 2 degrees centigrade." Researchers found that an "increase in paved land and concentrated human activities often leads to increased land surface temperatures". These are known as urban heat islands. Bangalore has three heat islands — towards Whitefield and Hosur, where there is a high concentration of IT companies, the Peenya Industrial Zone in north Bangalore, and the sprawling high-rise residential complexes of south Bangalore. In fact, Bangalore’s International Tech Park (ITPB), near Whitefield, is so built up that 80 per cent of the surface around it is paved, remarks Ramachandra. As temperatures rise, so does the use of appliances like ACs and air coolers, which only leads to a further increase in temperatures. It is not surprising, therefore, that Bangalore’s carbon footprint is growing progressively larger with each passing year. The traffic on the ribbon thin roads, which have hardly been widened since the days of the Raj, are choked by a dramatic increase in vehicles. A report of the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) shows that the increase in vehicles, both two-wheelers and four-wheelers, have contributed to the heightened levels of air pollution. According to the KSPCB report, two-wheelers have risen to over 2.04 million. The much-awaited Bangalore Metro, which is expected to help ease traffic congestion in the central parts of the city, has brought its own set of problems. Hundreds of trees will be felled to make way for the Metro and for road widening. The Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited, which is implementing the project, plans to axe about 110 trees around the famed Cubbon Park and its environs. The original proposal was for felling of 70 trees. As if all this is not enough, to spur the state’s growth further, large sections of farmland and forest areas on the outskirts of the city have been acquired by the state government without much thought for the future repercussions of such a policy. Meanwhile, lakes and
tanks — strung together like an irregular necklace — that the city
was once famous for, and which traditionally supplied most of its
water requirements, are disappearing fast. The BBMP (Bruhat Bengaluru
Mahanagara Palike) claims that of the 212 lakes today, as many as 42
have succumbed to "development works." They have been turned
into hospitals, schools, government buildings, bus-stands or stadiums.
Unfortunately, both private developers and the state government are
responsible for the destruction that is taking place. Take the water
situation. The city owes its water woes not just to the vanishing of
water bodies, but also to the fast plummeting groundwater tables.
Despite the ban on bore-wells, many have been dug, given intense water
shortages. In certain places bore-wells have gone down to as much as
1,000 feet. For Bangalore’s eight million residents, the alarm bells
are ringing loud and clear. Will they rise to save their city? Or will
the Garden City of India simply be allowed to wither away in the name
of a development that is skewed and environmentally unsustainable? —
WFS
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