The Unkempt Roads of Bangalore

Walk along the roads of Bangalore, take a leisurely stroll if you must, and chances are you will come across a pile of garbage staring at you, with street dogs adding to the nuisance. The cities once famous tag of Garden City is now restricted to the downtown areas and unnervingly near the residences of most politicians and Councillors. While the city municipal corporation does try its best to keep the city litter clean, there is clearly no Singaporean vision that Bangalore has yet to have taken hold off, despite all the efforts in that direction by NGO's, citizens groups and successive state and local governments. 

This year , municipal apathy has probably never been more clearly visible, when after the  2015 municipal elections for the BBMP wards, our politicians hooked of to resorts in Kerala and other parts of Karnataka, in order to escape poaching by other parties, while our city dwellers helplessly looked on as the dilapidated state of our public roads was once again ignored, just after the Councillors walked towards us on those very roads, promising change and a cleaner , better Bangalore.
Another phenomenon that is visible on Bangalorean roads is the footpath encroachment by construction workers, and the heaps of construction material strewn by the side of every road, when a new building is being constructed. This makes these streets ineligible for cars and medium size vehicles to ply on. Often times, the young children of construction workers can be seen playing in the middle of the road. The state of apathy towards civic sense and propriety is so backward in our city that rudely constructed cement huts on the footpaths, ends up as the home of these workers for more than a year, and they even hook up a dish tv connection and watch tv into the late night hours, though that is a rare occurrence, but even without this luxury, often the huts are centres where all kinds of vices like drinking proliferate.