 |
| For those CEOs inspired
enough by Bill Gates' munificence to go out and find a cause,
here's a small tip: start at home. It's not the homes or the
neighbourhoods our modern day Croesuses live in that need help-it's
the cities. |
For
those CEOs inspired enough by Bill Gates' munificence to go out
and find a cause they and their companies can support, here's a
small tip: start at home. It's not the dwellings or the neighbourhoods
of our modern day Croesuses that need help-these are tony enough
to do any first world country proud; it's the cities. Enterprising
Delhi is an overgrown village with way too many cars and not enough
drivers who know the rule of the law; once-efficient Mumbai is living
off its past momentum; India's very own Detroit-wannabe (never mind
that the US city has lost much of its auto glory) Chennai is a morass
of bad roads and worse politics; and hyped-up Hyderabad is a bubble
waiting to be burst.
Bangalore is a conscious omission from that
sentence, although it does deserve to be part of it. The traffic
is treacherous; the pollution, killing; an enduring river-water
sharing problem with Tamil Nadu fans jingoistic sentiments every
now and then; and a combination of power- and water-shortage makes
most parts of the city unlivable by first world standards. All this
information is in the public domain. When I say, as I am going to
do so now, and as I have done several hundred times in the past,
that Bangalore is the only Indian city that has a future, it provokes
responses ranging from gentle enquiries about the exotic-fungi content
of my diet to unprintable critiques of my intellectual abilities.
Modesty stops me from advertising my Mensa score here, and my diet
even excludes button mushrooms of the type all of Delhi seems to
prefer. So, what gives with Bangalore?
If Bangalore has a future, it is because of the city's businesses
and businessmen, or, as is the case in every success story, some
of them. In early 2000, the state government created the Bangalore
Agenda Task Force, a group of businessmen, executives, and bureaucrats-more
the first two than the third-that would work towards making Bangalore
a better place to live and do business in. That is the easy part
and something most governments can do without too much trouble.
Since then, the task force has-surprise, surprise-gone about doing
just what it was created to do. It has introduced the corporate
concept of fund-based accounting to the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike,
the local corporation, and acquainted it with the wonders it can
work in running an efficient city. It has convinced companies to
adopt neighbourhood parks, and work towards improving traffic quality,
and waste management, and...-I am sure you get the picture.
Most of this has become possible through corporate
participation. Bharti Mobile provided the infrastructure for a call
centre to address public grievances and the Infosys Foundation helped
create a radio paging network to help coordinate waste management.
All regular boring stuff (not normally what you would expect to
see in these pages), but also stuff that makes cities livable.
Other cities have their counterparts to the
BATF- Mumbai, for instance, had Bombay First and yes, businesses
play a big role in it-but none boasts achievements on a similar
plane. Maybe it has something to do with Bangalore's business culture
being dominated and driven by the city's infotech companies. Nerds,
after all, have always been perceived to be eco-friendly and civic-minded.
Earlier this year a BATF member made a presentation to Bombay First,
inspiring the latter to explore the possibility of an alliance.
Now, the same member tells me, BATF is educating four other cities
including Pune and Cochin. Big business, can, as I've always maintained
find a solution to most problems. It takes a city to show how.
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