Jun 24, 2006

So what if our PM is coming to town?

Our beloved Prime Minister is in town for inauguration of Namma Metro (much-awaited, long-delayed Metro Train in Bangalore). Even if you don’t read the newspaper, you could have known about his arrival. Here is how it happens.

One: In evening when you are traveling back from work, you realize that traffic is not moving at all. Knowing the Bangalore traffic pattern, you can easily distinguish between traffic at snail pace (which is the usual traffic here) and traffic not moving at all (which happens when one or the other VVIP comes to town). Especially if you travel through roads in central part of city (MG, or Rajbhavan road), you will know it better.

Two: You see that all the roadsides are flooded with political party flags. Today it is congress, some other day it will be other political party. There are poster welcoming the PM, and there are more posters praising Sonia Gandhi. What did she do for the metro is really a million dollar question. Still, when you see, poster put up by every chota-mota wannabe neta, you know some big political joker is in town.

Why can’t these VVIP people understand that their security arrangements create lot of discomfort for normal public? They come to town and they visit the central part of the town. There are some visits which cant be avoided. So why not make some route which makes it easy for the common man.
Sometimes ago there were talks about creating helipads in important parts of the city so that all the VVIP could be airlifted to these places. But those plans could not see light of the day. It can slove the traffic block problem easily. Seeing that city like Bangalore sees a VVIP guests every alternate day, it can be a economical viable solution also.

Second issue is the waste of money and resource by party workers in putting up these posters. When will the expenditure of the political parties regulated? Government wants taxpayers to mention all their expenditure in the tax return forms but political parties have no responsibilities at all.
When we have a policy which bans and regulates commercial hordings along the roads, how come these small posters come and go without any botheration. The businessman pay hefty money to put those holdings while netas and parties just put it on their wish. No control over the usage of public property whatsoever.

Does anyone care about it?

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