The gravy train: Supplying water is big business in Chennai

As this magazine goes to press, it is raining in Chennai and everyone is smiling. To date (November 13), the city has received 577.8 mm of rainfall, and the almost universal adoption of rain-water harvesting (mandated by the law since April 2004) could mean that the city's water woes recede from the insurmountable to the manageable. Still, despite all the rain (Chennai has received 45 per cent of its yearly quota until now) and the 180 million litres a day the city receives from the Veeranam Lake, neither the residents nor the administration is particularly sanguine: there still remains a shortfall of 690 million litres a day. Desalination plants could be the answer in a city that fortunately lies on the coast. The world's largest desalination plant at Ashkelon in Israel produces potable water at a cost of around Rs 25 for 1,000 litres. The average middle-class household in Chennai currently spends around Rs 800 a month for around 12,000 litres. The economics are in favour of desalination, but with private water suppliers (they supply water in tanker-loads) boasting powerful lobbies within both the main political parties in the state, it is unlikely Chennai will go the desalination-way anytime soon.

-Nitya Varadarajan

Like rabbits: Too many people... that's Bangalore's problem

BANGALORE: POPULATION

In 1991, Bangalore's population stood at 4.5 million; today, estimates put the number at over 7 million. "No one anticipated this kind of growth," says the city's outgoing mayor P.R. Ramesh. "Any city would be hard-pressed to cope (with this kind of growth)." Much of this growth in population can be attributed, directly or indirectly, to the city's 1,200 it companies. There are 1.73 lakh tech-workers and their families in the city, the labourers employed by developers catering to the growing demand for commercial and residential real-estate space, and the unskilled migrants from other parts of the state, even from other states, pouring into Bangalore to fill positions as hired help. Then, there is the mushrooming number of retail establishments opportunistically hoping to make a quick buck from all that discretionary income floating around. "The Mumbai-isation of Bangalore has started," rues Hanumane Gowda, a long-time resident of the city. "Slums have become a common sight and the quality of life has definitely become worse." Only, Mumbai has managed to cope with being the centre of India's old economy businesses. Bangalore, which desperately wants to be the capital of the country's knowledge industry, has flattered only to deceive.

-Venkatesha Babu

GURGAON: PUBLIC TRANSPORT

Spot the bus?: Nor can those dependant on public transport in Gurgaon

If you can afford to buy a house for Rs 30 lakh, surely you can afford a few cars." That is the response of an official of the Gurgaon administration to a query on the lack of public transportation within Gurgaon, and between the satellite and Delhi. Indeed, if you live in Gurgaon, work in Delhi and do not own a car, life could be hell. The options include: a) hitching a ride on an intra-state bus, typically one plying between Delhi and Jaipur; b) hitching a ride on an intra-state bus, typically one plying between Delhi and Jaipur; and c) hitching a ride on an intra-state bus, typically one plying between Delhi and Jaipur. Thus, while a soon-to-be-completed expressway will make life a whole lot easier for car-owners, other residents of the city have to wait for the Delhi Metro to extend to Gurgaon, a project that could take quite some time (this magazine's estimate is: well beyond 2010). And as far as travelling within the city is concerned (say, a trip to the nearest shopping mall) residents have to make do with rickety auto-rickshaws or human-powered pedal rickshaws. Then, that could be a better option to driving down in your car and spending the better part of an hour hunting for parking space.

-Kushan Mitra

Breathless: Air pollution is now the biggest bane of Hyderabad

HYDERABAD: AIR POLLUTION

In 1995, the quality of air in Hyderabad, then seen as one of India's hottest cities for business, was better than the standard listed by World Health Organisation. With 90 micrograms of Respirable Suspended Particulate Matter (rspm, the main cause of lung cancer) per one cubic metre of air as against the who standard of 100, the city's air was as pure as one could expect a city's to be. Today, the figure is nearly double that, courtesy a low road-share to city-space ratio, rampant fuel-adulteration, and lax fuel-testing norms (for instance, diesel vehicles are tested only for smoke, not the presence of poly-aromatic compounds such as benzene, the main cause of cancer and cardiac ailments, in the exhaust). With no laws mandating the conversion of commercial vehicles to CNG (compressed natural gas) and the retirement of vehicles that are more than 15 years old-Delhi and Mumbai have such laws, courtesy a Supreme Court order-a mere 4,000 of Hyderabad's 64,000 auto-rickshaws have converted to cleaner fuel (LPG, liquified petroleum gas, in this case). "There is a proposal to impose a sort of green tax on polluting vehicles," says Tishya Chatterjee, Principal Secretary to the Government in the Environment and Forests department. Then, with the testing methodology flawed, that will take the city nowhere.

-E. Kumar Sharma

PUNE: TRAFFIC

Nowhere to go: Pune's 1.2 million vehicles battle is out for road space every day

In what must surely be one of those urban ironies that have become all too common, Pune, a city that has contributed to the great Indian automotive revolution-Tata Motors, Bajaj, Kinetic and a clutch of well-known auto-component makers such as Bharat Forge and Cummins are based here-finds itself in the midst of a traffic-management crisis that threatens to cripple it. The statistics, as laid out by the Pune Traffic and Transportation Forum (PTTF), are frightening: Pune has 1.2 million vehicles; Mumbai, 1 million. The commuting time during peak hours has more than doubled in the past decade. In the same period, there has been a 30 per cent increase in ailments stemming from vehicular pollution. And a recent World Bank Report lists Pune as the fifth-most polluted city in Asia. "The number one bottleneck is transportation," says Baba Kalyani, Chairman, Bharat Forge. The city's Municipal Commisioner Nitin Kareer agrees, and says an integrated road development scheme (it costs Rs 1,500 crore) that involves the widening of roads and the construction of flyovers will help address the problem. PTTF-member Sujit Patwardhan isn't impressed. "An increase in road-length is not the solution," he says. "The added capacity will become inadequate over time; why cannot we create powerful magnets for living, shopping, and working in the suburbs?". Whatever it wants to do, Pune better do it soon.

-Priya Srinivasan