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BANGALORE: Come November, the best and the worst faces of Bangalore are displayed, and this year was no different. November is a crucial month in Bangalore for two reasons. First: An annual five day jamboree of the city's tech prowess is displayed through an 'IT.Com' event, which has become a must-visit in the calendar for even people not connected with the tech sector. Countries like the US and UK put up their pavilions as Bangalore showcases its modern face of a go getting tech city.
The second is that November 1 is the state formation day when Karnataka emerged as a single entity. This is a time for bemoaning and chest beating by supra chauvinists that Kannadigas have become a minority in Bangalore. A silly season is declared with shop signs in English being daubed with black paint. While this is an annual exercise, this year both events have taken on an extra edge. A number of IT companies, under the banner of Bangalore Forum of Information Technology, announced their intention to boycott IT.Com because the state government had paid scant attention to improving infrastructure in the city. While the state government was able to mollify the companies--temporarily at least--by saying that it would look into their grievances, the problems of Bangalore have not disappeared. Bob Hoekstra, the energetic CEO of Philips Software, says, "It is not right to try and attract more companies while even existing players do not have adequate infrastructure in the city." N.R. Narayana Murthy, Chairman and Chief Mentor of Infosys, went to the extent of suggesting that the Centre should start administering major cities in the country, as individual state governments are paralysed by various reasons and could not attend to their needs. The problems of Bangalore are no different from that of other major cities. An exploding population--Bangalore's population has gone up from 4.5 million to around 7.2 million in less than 15 years--has led to increasing demands on a crumbling infrastructure. While the city has nearly 20 lakh vehicles of all sizes and shapes on the roads, Bangalore saw its first flyover only five years back. Poor planning has meant that a 10-km ride within the city could take anything between 45 to 90 minutes. A fact experienced by Rahul Gandhi, who on a recent visit to Bangalore was delayed by more than 20 minutes enroute to Infosys. A visit to the city by a VIP--and it is an increasing occurrence as everybody from the President of India, the New Zealand PM to Bill Gates visit the campuses of the likes of Infosys and Wipro--paralyses vehicular movement as all the main arterial roads are shut off. "Commuting time in Bangalore has grown three-fold in the last five years," complains Arundhati Sen, a project engineer with HP. IIMB students--who are potential leaders of Indian industry--took to the streets to protest against the condition of the roads leading to the institute's campus. 15,000 tech workers had planned to block Hosur road leading to Electronic City where the likes of Infosys and Wipro are located to protest similarly against infrastructure conditions. A plan dropped at the last minute after fervent appeals from the state government that this would dent Bangalore's image in the international fora. With 750 new vehicles being registered daily in the city and work on flyovers having ground to a halt--due to a dispute on whether contractors need to be compensated for the increased steel and cement prices--there seems to be no end in sight for Bangalore's traffic woes. Even handling of traffic has become a huge burden for the city police. Says Police Commissioner S. Mariswamy, "My number one challenge is traffic regulation. We have just 2,800 traffic cops for a city of 20 lakh vehicles and 72 lakh people. That is a ratio of one traffic cop for every 2,500 people. It is just not possible (to regulate)." Mariswamy also bemoans the fact that police officials are not involved in the city planning process. "We are just handed the problems. If we are involved from day one we could plan solutions from day one." It is not just traffic that is grating everyone's nerves. Power is a major problem too. Karnataka is a high power-deficit state. While demand is around 4,800 MW, supply is just around 2,750 MW. Bangalore's peak power requirement alone is 1,217 MW. "If Bangalore, which is seen as the crown jewel of the state, suffers from unscheduled power cuts, you can only imagine the fate of other parts of the state, specially rural areas. This year because of a good monsoon the city has escaped with a small number of power cuts. Come summer and the old story starts again as nearly 40 per cent of Karnataka's power is generated through hydro electricity," says M.G. Prabhakar, former Chairman of the Energy Committee of the Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce and Industry. While the city does not suffer from large-scale water shortages yet, not many people realise that Bangalore has no major source of water itself, and what it gets is piped from the Cauvery. "After Mexico city, Bangalore gets its water from the farthest distance, nearly 147 kilometres away. With the construction boom on to accommodate the influx of such a huge population, indiscriminate tapping of ground water resources is being resorted to. At some point water rationing even in Bangalore will have to start," says a senior official of the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board. Real estate costs in the city have gone through the roof. Irfan Razack, MD of Prestige Group, which is a leading developer in Bangalore, says that there has been a substantial increase in both commercial and residential property prices over the past couple of years. Another indication of that: when Bangalore Development Authority called applications for the distribution of 20,000 residential sites recently, it received 30 times more applications. It has not been just the routine problems of roads, power, water or real estate as was discovered by a young working couple. K. Sridhar is an engineer with Mphasis Technologies and his wife Aparna is an architect who is practicing on her own. For the past five months they have been trying to get a full-time nanny for their 11-month-old daughter Shweta. "Play homes say that the child should be at least 15-24 months before they are willing to admit. Both of us have demanding professional lives and we are willing to pay well but have yet to find somebody to take care of her." The influx of people has had other socio-economic impacts as well. "Bangalore's Mumbai-isation has started. Slums, a rare phenomenon earlier, have become only too common. Quality of life, which used to be Bangalore's biggest attraction, is dwindling. Unless the city gets its act together very quickly on the infrastructure front, there will be a marked decline in Bangalore's appeal," says Hanume Gowda a, long-time resident of the city. While Bangalore is famed for its cosmopolitan culture and the tolerant nature of its people, it is fraying at the edges. G. Narayana, a former Mayor and President of the Kannada Development Authority, says, "Today just 27 per cent of Bangaloreans are Kannadigas. It is a tragedy that in the name of development Kannada and Kannadigas are being deprived of their rightful share (of development). I will not be surprised if a campaign like 'Mee Mumbaikar' also springs up here unless the interest of Kannada-speaking people are protected." In Belandur village, farmers have gone to court against the state government's move to acquire lands as part of its 'IT corridor' project. Bargur Muniyappa, a farmer, says, "Why should the state government forcibly acquire our agricultural lands that have been handed down from generations in the name of development? Neither our children nor we will benefit from them. Computers will not help us." The challenge for Bangalore as well as other megapolises is how to ensure a balance between growth and equity while ensuring a decent quality of life for its citizens. -Venkatesha Babu CHENNAI: It does not have discos and pubs in every neighbourhood, but cuisines of many countries in Europe and Asia can be had here, and neighbourhood supermarkets store imported ingredients in case you want to cook a continental supper at home. Retail is at its best here--quite often the rest of the country catches up with what starts in Chennai. Then there are reasonable job opportunities in both manufacturing and IT sectors. In the midst of the tens of textile showrooms--all in Usman Road and all of them of 50,000 sq. ft. area--a seasoned Chennaite starts wondering why he feels a bit nostalgic. Then it hits him. The modern glitz has sacrificed beauty in the city. There is no space for it--apartments careen at odd angles, often violating rules and later on getting regularised by paying a fine. The trees are dying on account of a three-year drought and some more have been cut down to broaden roads, and pavements knocked off to get an extra two feet of road. People cannot walk in peace in the city, because there are no pavements to speak of except in certain upmarket areas. The air he breathes, unless he is in the beach, is quite suffocating. Back in the 1960s and 70s, the city was still a peaceful place to live in. A city development plan was drafted that was supposed to take care of growth till 1991. Though drafted in 1971, the population estimate that was taken into consideration proved to be very adequate. People testify to the strong urbanisation coupled with the rural charms of parks, shady avenues and adequate water supplies. A number of ideas came up regarding decongestion of the city by shifting the town bus stand to a different area, having three truck terminals in the outskirts close to the industrial estates, constructing the MRTS, planning the Ring Road, setting up regulated housing colonies with an appropriate place marked for commercial activities close to the colonies, etc. Most of these plans, which should have been executed by 1991 by which time the next plan would be drafted to take care of the next decade of growth, saw some kind of completion only between 1998-2000. Meanwhile, the city grew in its own way, untrammelled. However, one activity was indeed given justice in the 80s,and that was housing for slums. In the last decade--migration to Chennai cities was a big issue earlier--20 per cent of its population were located in slums. With the help of World Bank funding in phases to the tune of $530 million, some of the housing needs, along with public toilets, were taken care of. Apart from this, child health care was introduced and some cottage industries were set up to provide employment to generally provide upliftment. Today, as it was in 1971, the Chennai Metropolitan area covers 1,170 sq. km, of which 550 km could be constituted as ready for urban occupation. The Chennai Corporation takes care of the heart of the city that measures 174 sq. km; maintenance of the remaining parts was left to the municipalities. Except that growth in the last decade has ensured that the areas once regarded as outposts are urban centres in their own right. But in the decades of the 70s and 80s, even though there was strong urbanisation, the city was still liveable with wide shady avenues, a number of parks, less traffic etc. It is unfortunate that the city planners could not implement most of what they intended, because they were strapped for funds. Hence, untrammelled housing and shops particularly in the municipalities grew, though some areas (like the upmarket Anna Nagar, Besant Nagar) saw planned growth. "The only good thing about housing growth in the city is that the concept of living in situ or in apartments started happening of its own accord--and that fortunately led to efficient use of space," says former Chief Urban Planner and UN consultant G. Dattatri. "If people had built single houses in plots, by now we would have stretched up to Villupuram (some 150 km from the city centre)," he adds in a lighter vein. In 1991, the second plan was drafted. While this incorporated substantial chunks of the incomplete work of the first plan, this plan was somehow never really given a thrust, thanks to a court case in between filed by a consumer group. "Today the CMDA is more bogged down by day-to-day operations; there is very little room for planning," says Dattatri. This bodes ill for the city, which anyway has been seeing unregulated growth for the last 10 years. The second plan's term ends by 2010--and nobody is heard talking about it. Fortunately, economists, social scientists, and Dattatri and his NGO group called Citizen Alliance for Sustainable Living still feel that it is not too late to save the city. "We have a good network of roads (incidentally only 35 km or so were added afresh in the last decade), and this is still adequate to manage the city traffic. However an intelligent road management is needed and in this we can take a few lessons from the West," he says. It had better happen soon. Eminent CEOs who have huge investments in the city like David Friedman of Ford Motor Company politely phrase it, as 'the infrastructure is considerably overburdened'. The population has just grown by 10 per cent in the last decade--at the rate of 1 per cent a year. One important conclusion from this is that migration has reduced drastically. Partly this can be attributed to the increasingly difficult conditions in the city: lack of water and increased rentals/price of real estate, and this affects even the slum people. There has been no increase in the number of slums; those in the existing ones are getting rehabilitated with better housing, but even this involves a cost and deters migration. Explaining the decline of migration, Dr. Paul Appasamy, an economist and social scientist and Director Madras School of Economics (headed by Raja Chelliah, an eminent economist himself), says, "People outside Chennai are better networked today. They no longer want to come here unless they are sure of a job. They make sure of the living conditions and their skill sets, before they come in." Otherwise, Tamil Nadu itself is well urbanised and people are increasingly finding jobs in the nearest small towns, he says. Apart from construction activity, job opportunities in Chennai are increasingly requiring skill sets. The unskilled labourer does not have a big role. People in the lower income group, and even in slums, are increasingly taking up diploma courses post-school to settle on some livelihood. Appasamy says, "The quality of life has definitely gone up all round; we don't find the obvious extreme poverty to the extent a decade ago." Aspirations have gone up for all; the importance of education is better understood than before. Today it may be just possible to get a housemaid - but a slum-living woman would not want her daughter to work as a domestic servant. Instead she will go to a garment factory. This has already started happening. "How can you otherwise explain the growth in the number of two wheelers and cars quite disproportionate to the population?" asks Appasamy. His clerk, he says, has a motorcycle and auto rickshaw drivers have cellphones. The price for progress and for growth has to be paid. There is a greater level of pollution, and greater levels of stress. "But we can cope with all this as long as the government helps with the infrastructure," he says. Appasamy feels it is unlikely that the private sector can be roped in to help with city development and maintenance because of its low commercial prospects. Dattatri however disagrees. Unlike in the 70s and 80s, when the CMDA was strapped for funds, today there are any number of avenues for raising them through public private partnerships. "The private sector only wants a cleanly-drafted, executable and sensible plan and they would be more than willing to invest. Clarity is needed at the project stage and the rest will follow," he says. Right on cue, Dr. A Ramakrishna, President and Joint Managing Director, L&T says, "There are private parties willing to come forward to take up maintenance of entire areas, and it need not be expensive for the common man. The commercial gains could come through advertising rights, and even the Corporation could gain through some kind of sharing arrangement." Dattatri feels that even the acute problems of water, health, waste disposal and development of townships can be sorted out. For starters there should be enough coordination between various government agencies in any action taken, so that each does not go its own way, undoing the work of the previous authority. "For this, an Integrated Metropolitan Committee should be set up involving various departments (Transport, Metrowater, Housing, CMDA, etc.), which would act as a centralised body for the whole of the metropolitan area. The CMDA's role in this should be limited to what it is good at: planning, while its existing role should be disbanded. The second city plan can be kept aside, and this new body should bring out a third, sustainable one in the next 18 months," he says. Then there will be hope for a decent city. -Nitya
Varadarajan Circa 1993, Gurgaon (literally Jaggery Village) was a place you passed on NH 8 while driving from Delhi towards Rajasthan. It was most famous for the Maruti Factory and the fields full of mustard or wheat. The first high-rise condominium complex, 'Silver Oaks', had just been completed by DLF Universal and had 450 apartments. There were no schools, colleges or hospitals and you had to venture back to Delhi just for essential groceries. Circa 2004, Gurgaon is a place you crawl to on your way from Delhi to Rajasthan on the same road. Today, the town is most famous for a clutch of call centres, rows of malls and super-exclusive apartments with regal Anglo-Saxon names. Today there are in excess of 10,000 apartments in Gurgaon. The fanciest and latest ones are centrally air-conditioned, have heavy security and are totally insulated from the outside world. Plus, they cost upwards of a crore of rupees. The Maruti factory across the road has fuelled an explosion in vehicular traffic. There is a 50 per cent shortfall in electricity, and sewage is dumped into open drains. There is no public transport and the two major roads are a driver's nightmare during rush hour. Gurgaon's rapid growth has even caught the authorities off guard. Officials at the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA), the nodal authority for Gurgaon, have no clue whatsoever about some rather rudimentary current figures--like waste generation and road length, let alone archival data. However, in the midst of all this chaos lies India's largest construction zone. In the past four years over 6,000 new apartments have been occupied, two million sq. ft. of office space added and over a million sq. ft. of retail development has happened. In the next 18-24 months, estimates based on numbers from DLF Universal and Unitech (the two largest developers in Gurgaon--together they own almost 5,000 acres of the town) suggest that another three million sq. ft. of office space will be added, another 5,000 apartments will come up and even if only half the 30-odd malls planned for Gurgaon open, three million sq. ft. of retail space will get dumped onto the market. Phew! Welcome to Gurgaon, described in flowery adverts as south of south Delhi. This is home to the corporate headquarters of firms such as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, General Motors, Microsoft and a host of other companies. It is also home to the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) units of General Electric, Convergys, American Express, IBM, Daksh, TCS and many more. How did this nondescript stop on the way to Rajasthan become what it has? "Frankly, the Delhi government allowed Gurgaon to happen," says Arvind Khanna, Marketing Director, DLF Universal. Through a process which mainly involved procrastination, Delhi drove away developers, and enacted some rather strange laws, one of which included the reduction of the floor-area ratio (FAR) in the central Connaught Place (CP) business district. "Across the world, most cities increase the FAR and raise taxes in that area to provide additional infrastructure. Once Delhi did this, developers had no incentive to build new buildings in the CP area. This, coupled with the chaos at Nehru Place, meant that there was no good office space in Delhi, and then came Gurgaon", Khanna explains. The Gurgaon story actually began in the late eighties after a meeting that K.P. Singh, the promoter of DLF Universal, had with the then Prime Minister, the late Rajiv Gandhi. Gandhi advised Singh to become a land aggregator in the town of Gurgaon, which bordered Delhi's south-west and was within a few minutes (then) drive from Indira Gandhi International Airport. To be fair, Gurgaon was already booming when DLF moved in. They were already home to the manufacturing facilities of Maruti Udyog and Hero Honda along with their support industries. The town was already one of the largest in the state of Haryana with a population of 50,000 plus. Initially, DLF sold only plots in what is today known as Qutab Enclave just off the second access road from Delhi, which started at the ruins of Mehrauli. However, in mid-1993, the first major condominium complex 'Silver Oaks' was ready for occupation. With 450 flats, this complex signalled the start of the building rush. By the end of 2004, there are expected to be over 12,000 apartments in Gurgaon from the three largest developers alone--DLF, Unitech and Ansals. This is in addition to over 25,000 plots sold by the same three developers across 'new' Gurgaon. The development is happening at such a frantic pace that Gurgaon itself is not large enough--the latest projects are taking place on the Gurgaon-Sohna road. But is Gurgaon really all that it is made to be? If you cross onto the other side of the national highway, you get to see a different Gurgaon--old Gurgaon. There are no towering apartment blocks here, and no gigantic BPO offices, but a lot of cows and erratic cyclists as well as Gurgaon's first and for a long time only movie hall--Payal Cinema (today Gurgaon has three operating multiplexes and plans for at least 10 more). This is reminiscent of small-town India, not glamorous India. It is in this side of Gurgaon that the local office of the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) is located. The office is a throwback to government offices of old; damp, dingy corridors and virtually no one to help you around. Even when you manage to find someone, gleaning information off him or her becomes a near impossible task. It is probably expected, because the figures make for some alarming reading. "Gurgaon is not able to treat more than 20 per cent of its sewage and is barely able to meet 50 per cent of peak power requirements, and a water crisis is also looming on the horizon," says a senior executive of a property developer. And it is not as if the authorities have not had the money to do so. "I would think that all the major developers would have contributed just under a thousand crores to the Haryana government in the form of external development charges (EDC)", claims Sanjay Chandra, Director, Unitech. If the Haryana Government has received so much in the form of EDC, then not much has been done. However, the government for its part, while admitting that "development has taken place in a skewed hotchpotch manner", contends that the private 'colonisers' have not fulfilled their part of the bargain either. Dinesh Chauhan, District Town Planner, HUDA, believes that it is the private developers who are responsible for the mess by expanding faster than the town can cope. Chauhan also gave the rationale behind the fast-paced development on one side of the highway and the non-existent development of the other side. "That is because of the Air Force munitions dump which is located bang in the middle of the city, and because of this no development can take place for 900 metres around the site. Plus there are also height restrictions on buildings, so because of that, all the development was skewed towards 'new' Gurgaon." And then there is crime. The Crimes Records Office of the Haryana Police was not cooperative in releasing crime statistics, and according to a recent report in a leading daily, in several cases the local police refuse to file First Information Reports (FIR). Special Superintendent of Police, Gurgaon range, Alok Kumar Rai, however contends that the police are 'coping well' with the growth, but admits that a lot more needs to be done. "Inside the apartment complexes there is adequate security. Even outside, it is not that bad, but I would think twice before stepping out at night", says Arun Tadanki, CEO, Monster India, who resides at the Hamilton Court complex in DLF Phase IV. K.K. Bhattacharya, Executive Director, DLF, however believes that the government has to do a lot more. "Today, we are functioning as a little pseudo-government inside every apartment complex. We are taking care of our own security, water and electricity. How long can this carry on? We as developers are not responsible for these things," he contends. Strangely, it seems that the 'colonisers' will soon be responsible for a lot more. Gurgaon's Fire Department is woefully under-equipped, particularly to handle high-rise infernos. DLF it seems is in the process of acquiring a new fire engine just to handle such situations, and one DLF official expects the company to be running their own fire station shortly. "This town might be the hub of outsourcing, but is has itself outsourced governance", joked the official. Patu Keswani, CEO, Krizm Hotels, who recently opened a low-cost hotel, Lemon Tree, in Gurgaon also criticised the lack of infrastructure. "We have had to build a backup system to our backup system," he complained. This, according to Keswani, has escalated costs: "Not just from a capital expenditure point of view, but also operating costs. It costs me Rs 8.25 per unit of power from by generators versus Rs 4.30 if I draw it from the power-line. There is obviously a failure of planning by the government. So not only do we have to do our own electricity and water but also sewage treatment." In fact, Chandra estimates that the construction of power backup adds around Rs 2.5-3 lakh to the price of an apartment, which even he admits "is no mean sum of money". In fact, Keswani believes that the escalating property prices will soon drive the more labour-intensive industries to the cheaper environs of Manesar, a town a few kilometres down the highway to Rajasthan. But, labour intensive industries is one thing, knowledge-intensive IT and BPO offices will continue to open their doors in Gurgaon. DLF is in the process of finishing 'Cyber Greens' a 9,00,000 sq. ft. office complex where corporations like Microsoft and Nokia will have their national headquarters. "In the next eighteen months we should be finishing around two million sq. ft. of office space, most of it in the 25-acre CyberCiti area," says Khanna. "Corporations are not asking for small 20,000 sq. ft. offices; they want large 1,00,000 sq. ft.-plus office sizes, with very large floor plans and in many cases, exclusivity. This place is not slowing down," Chandra adds. But the traffic definitely is. The 18 km from south-west Delhi's main Dhaula Kuan intersection to Gurgaon's IFFCO Chowk used to take 20 minutes a few years ago. Today, with construction on the National Highway, the time has doubled. "The construction on the highway is going fine, but until it is finished traffic is going to be a slight pain and the Mehrauli-Gurgaon road is another can of worms," admits Deep Kapuria, Managing Director, Hi-Tech Gears, an auto ancillary company with its office in Gurgaon. Then there are the inner-city roads of Gurgaon, which are often in a state of disrepair. According to figures from a prominent financing company, over 2,000 cars are bought from Gurgaon-based dealerships every month. Considering half the cars in Gurgaon are registered in Delhi, that according to one source means that over 5,000 new cars are added to the roads of Gurgaon every month. But, commuters might soon have an opportunity to rejoice. Not only should the eight-laning work on the Gurgaon-Delhi section of NH 8 get finished, two new access roads to Delhi might soon be built. "There are plans to build a road that will allow people from West Delhi, particularly the Dwarka region to access Gurgaon and we are also planning a road directly from Vasant Kunj. In addition, we are talking with Delhi authorities to work on expanding the Mehrauli-Gurgaon road," says Chauhan. He also refuted allegations by the developers that HUDA hasn't been maintaining roads. "Many of the roads that are in a bad way are supposed to be maintained by the private developers. Also, the growth of traffic has taken us by surprise, but the situation on the major roads should improve next year," he adds. Added to this is a near-total lack of public transport. If you live in Gurgaon, and you office is a just two km away, there is virtually no means of getting there. Unless you own your mode of transport, or are willing to risk life, limb and olfactory senses on a rickety three-wheeler, both motorised and human-powered. Again, assurances were made that "the problem is being looked into". However, what is known is that HUDA did approach the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) to evaluate a proposal to link Gurgaon with Delhi. Which still doesn't solve the problem of local transport, but as one Gurgaon official said, "If you can afford a Rs 30 lakh house, surely you can afford a few cars." Education is another problem, but is currently latent. "There are a lot of schools coming up here, and I believe that the Shriram School in Gurgaon is one of the best in the country," says Chandra. A point echoed by Tadanki. However, higher education is a problem, because the closest full-fledged university offering undergraduate courses is Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi's Munirka area, almost 15 km away, and even that is primarily a graduate-level University. Delhi University's main campus is over 40 km away by the shortest route. "There will have to be some thought given to the lack of higher education in this town. The fact is that Delhi University itself can't cope with admissions today. What will happen 20 years down the line when a majority of Gurgaon residents start sending their kids to college?" wonders Khanna. Despite all those problems, however, the flood of residents coming to Gurgaon is not expected to slow. "If over 3 million sq. ft. of office space is occupied in the next two years, you can expect at least another 30,000 people working here. Even if half those people buy houses and move here, and to that if you add natural migration, you are looking at demand for at least 20,000 new housing units in the two-three years alone," explains DLF's Khanna. "We have designed our latest residential complexes like fully-integrated townships. There will be office spaces and recreational facilities all inside the boundary wall," says Unitech's Chandra while showing off a concept design for a yet-to-be built complex in the Gurgaon area. "Despite all its problems, Gurgaon is becoming a model for other cities to emulate. The quality of construction, and that of life inside the complex, is possibly the best in the country, and it is affordable for middle-class India", he adds. There are other positives also. It is expected that any new government in the state of Haryana will privatise the electricity department. "The benefits for businesses and residents will be huge," says Kapuria. Bhattacharya also expects progress on the front of sanitation as well as roads, "This is the state of Haryana's showpiece town, and they will have to start paying more attention to it." -Kushan Mitra HYDERABAD: Infosys sponsors the traffic lights on the cross roads in the commercial hub of the city. A signboard on the Gachibowli road points to a diversion that leads to Infosys and the Indian School of Business (ISB) on either side of the road. You know you are in Hyderabad when the village of Madhapur gets better known as Cyberabad, an IT hub, and Manikonda village means suburbs of ISB. These points on the Hyderabad city map are some 20 km from the airport (which incidentally is still well within the city centre). Getting there is a drive past some lovely chrome and glass structures, eateries like the Pizza Hut, sprawling campuses of Satyam and Wipro and the fringes of Hi-Tec City, a 158-acre geographical spread that is home to some of the biggest names in the global IT space. This, for a moment, seems a city in a rush to occupy mindspace where Cyber Towers, the Rs 120-crore building that houses Microsoft on its 9th floor, is fast replacing Charminar as the new prestige icon. Hyderabad, the erstwhile laidback city of the Nizams, has never had it so good. It is truly transformed and exudes energy levels and competencies that could well pose a major challenge for American workers. What is more, much of this has happened just over the past six years and there has been a sea change over the past decade. Since the mid 90s, when IT in the state began to tick (also the time Nara Chandrababu Naidu replaced his father-in-law as the Chief Minister of the state), IT exports from Andhra (largely out of Hyderabad) were just Rs 60 crore. Today, it is over Rs 5,000 crore. World class IT infrastructure space to the tune of over 5 million sq. ft. has been created, led by investments in excess of $0.5 billion, and people employed in this space have increased from just about 5,000 in the mid 90s to about 80,000 (including ITeS). Needless to say, this heady pace of growth has happened at a cost. The city adds about 1-1.5 lakh vehicles each year to its roads taking the total number today to about 15 lakh, all of which add to its air pollution. Air pollution levels have doubled in the past six years (up from 500 metric tonnes to 1,100 metric tonnes), and the city's peak level pollution levels are worrying. The respirable suspended particulate matter (RSPM)--fine particles of smoke that are absorbed by the lungs--is touching peak levels at around 200 micrograms per cubic meter, which is double the ideal limit. "Growing traffic and pollution are a source of concern and many times we have to think twice before venturing out,'' says B. Ramalinga Raju, Chairman of Satyam Computer Services. He feels the long-term solution for the city lies in strengthening its public transport system. More vehicles also add to the burden on the city's roads that are ill-equipped to absorb growing numbers. Consider this: Area devoted to roads out of the total city space is just 7 per cent as against 18 to 20 per cent in Delhi; there are just 85 signalised traffic intersections as against 180 in Pune and 400 in Delhi. This coupled with poorly-staffed traffic police (the total city traffic police force is just 1,151 compared to 1,637 in Bangalore, 2,065 in Chennai and 4,171 in Delhi) means more gridlocks and traffic snarls; growth has essentially meant ribbon development (activity happening vertically--just along the roadsides with little inner city growth). An example of this would be the six shopping malls in various stages of development along a two-km road linking Banjara Hills with Somajiguda, the commercial hub of the city. The state did respond to the infrastructure needs by building six new flyovers in the past few years (and is planning five more over the next one year). But, with poor banking (leading to water logging) and small width (no futuristic planning), the flyovers have provided little respite. There is traffic congestion at points where the flyovers meet roads, each of varying widths. In fact, the city has no fixed road width and arguably no road in the city is properly banked with any storm water drains, which means even with a little downpour one tends to yearn for gondolas. Imagine Venice with an Indian skyline, chaos, mopeds and auto rickshaws in water. The government tried to deal with it by providing multi-modal transport (metro rail) but it has not really solved the problem, as it needs to be integrated with other transport possibilities. For instance, there should be the option to park and ride (bulk parking of vehicles at the railway station to take the forward train journey) coupled with bus connectivity into the city. Both have not been planned in an integrated fashion. Cracks in civic planning are also visible in the little effort given over time to provide for zoning (there is almost no zoning in the city for schools, hospitals and other utilities with the result that they are entrapped in residential and commercial localities). There is poor alternate route planning. For instance, there has been only one way linking Banjara Hills and Jubilee Hills (both locationally crucial for corporate players) with Secunderabad and the airport. A second route was built around the Hussain Sagar lake but it was essentially created for tourism promotion and to get kids to the parks and eateries around the lake. Added to this is the fact that the city has no time staggering (morning/evening schools, shop holidays). Old-timers in the city blame much of the problem on the roads to road widening done in fits and starts with very poor long-term planning. Add to that, there is poor road sense among commuters (there is no right of way and there is literal competition and one-upmanship on the roads). Also, Hyderabadis typically are uncomfortable with cellar parking, and several cellars are under-utilised and roads over-congested. There is only one multi-floor paid parking complex in the entire city (at Abids) built by the Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad. It is not surprising therefore that traffic management can be quite a challenge in Hyderabad. With time at work increasing by the day, Tejdeep Kaur Menon, Additional Commissioner of Police (traffic), has to spend a substantial part of her day on the roads, creating awareness on the need to follow traffic rules (through booklets distributed with newspapers) and ensuring that traffic rules are followed. With a typical Hyderabadi reluctant to wear a helmet, her major problem at the moment is to find ways to cut down fatal accidents on the roads. Last year 3,427 accidents happened and till the end of October this year alone, the number is up to 2,990. But reaching home still does not solve the problem for the Hyderabadi, who still has to deal with water shortages, which is another sore point. Depending on the locality, piped water is available for just between two and four hours every alternate day in the city and is unlikely to change in the immediate future. "This year has been a particularly bad one with 30 to 40 per cent deficit in the catchment areas. Nonetheless, we are just able to meet the demand at the moment,'' says B.P. Acharya, Managing Director of the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board. This has been mainly because of the water supply being augmented by drawing water from the Krishna river. This began in April this year with the city drawing 20 million gallons per day (MGD). This is now up to 45 MGD (about 20 per cent of the total requirement) and the hope is to raise it to 90 MGD by March/April next year. It must however, be said to the credit of the state administration that it has largely solved the problem of power outages (there have been almost no power cuts in the city for the past couple of years). Critics argue that it is part of management strategy to distribute load accordingly. With rising losses you are forced to supply power to regions where recovery is the highest. But, power infrastructure and equipment needs huge investments on maintenance, something the utility has been dealing with. Despite that, even a little downpour can disrupt power supply. A long-time energy expert in the city and a former bureaucrat, who was also once the chairman of the state utility once told BT that "this is perhaps the only place where transformer repair has emerged as a business.'' The Regulatory Commission for instance is believed to have stipulated that the number of transformer burnouts be contained to some manageable level. It touched a high of around 60,000 transformer burnouts per year around the time power reforms were initiated (around 1999-2000). Those tracking the sector today talk of estimates in the region of 20,000. Despite all this, many still view the city in better light, specifically as cleaner and greener than other cities. Little wonder that in the past six months, 52 new IT companies (18 international and 34 local) have set up shop in the city and the software exports in 2004-05 are expected to touch Rs 7,500 crore. The reason: It still costs only 70 per cent of what it costs to set up operations in Bangalore and 50 to 60 per cent of what it would cost in Mumbai or Delhi. Then, there is availability of competencies and lower attrition rate (the rate is believed to be in the region of 10 to 15 per cent as against 35 to 40 per cent in other major regions). "On a relative scale vis-à-vis other cities, I think Hyderabad has been able to cope well with the changes. The power situation is also better than other cities like Bangalore. And if water problem can be dealt with, I have no issues,'' says C. Parthasarathy, Chairman and Managing Director of Karvy consultants and the Hyderabad chapter Chairman for Ficci. Finally, odd as it may seem, low road share in city space has proved to be a blessing as it translates into lower distribution of pollution making the city, on the whole, more liveable if not just a bit more affordable than the other biggies! -E. Kumar Sharma PUNE: Driving into Pune on the showpiece Mumbai Pune Expressway (India's first as any Mumbaikar or Puneite will proudly announce at any given chance), mammoth hoardings on either side of the expressway welcome you into the city. Every one of them advertises property--residential, commercial, row houses, condominiums, townships, mini cities--you name it. Developers have christened the offerings anything from "Tranquille" to "Whispering Woods" to "Mountain View" to just about anything that serves as a proxy for all that Pune, the 'summer capital of Bombay' stood for. It's almost as if property developers have laid siege to the erstwhile seat of power of the Peshwas, the Brahmins who ruled the Maratha Kingdom in the 19th century. It's not just visitors to the city who are taken aback by the scale of construction; it's the hot topic of debate even amongst town planners, city administrators and activists. The construction however is just symptomatic of a much larger story, that of the Pune economy which is on a rapid growth trajectory with the IT sector expecting a 40 per cent year-on-year growth in exports and the auto segment expecting to see a 20 per cent rise in units produced annually for the next five years. Auto employs about 75,000 people in the city and Pune accounts for over 55 per cent of annual auto production in the country. The auto sector been entrenched in Pune for the last few decades and the auto industry is almost entirely based in the 65 sq. km Pimpri Chinchwad area of Pune, a zone that has been demarcated with its own Municipal Corporation. The city currently has 8,000 engineering units of various sizes including those of the major auto manufacturers, and Puneites are often caught referring to it as the 'Detroit of India'. Now for the growth story, which is entirely in the Information Technology segment. The Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) estimates export growth out of Pune at the rate of 40 per cent per annum over the next couple of years. Exports for 2005 are estimated at over Rs 6,225 crore. It is the software sector that has spawned the eye-popping construction in response to lifestyle needs, according to Pune Municipal Commissioner Nitin Kareer. "We are seeing maximum economic growth in this decade. 50,000 jobs are created annually in the IT sector alone, and 75 per cent of the properties on sale are being bought by first time immigrants into the city". "The IT sector has definitely created an altogether different lifestyle expectation for professionals in the city," says M.B. Paralkar, Head of HR for Tata Motors' vast commercial and passenger car production units in Pune. The influx and resultant scamper by property developers however is bringing its own brand of development which simply put translates into lego-set-like constructions, give or take some variations springing up on the odd hillside or valley (Pune nestles in the midst of the undulating Western Ghats mountain range) in a pattern that screams lack of planning. "Look at the village of Bavdhan right here," gestures Aneeta Benninger, Director of the Centre for Development Studies and Activities in Pune and member of the Municipal Corporation's planning committee, from the sylvan environs of the institute on a hill overlooking the Bavdhan development of a profusion of multi-storeyed structures, largely unoccupied. Bavdhan is one of the more recently annexed villages for the city's expansion. Much of the construction has eaten away into the hillsides in clear violation of environmental reservation rules. Pockets of ad hoc development like this seem to bother a host of concerned citizens and planners like Benninger. And it's not without reason. Every upcoming suburban pocket would need contact with the city centre as well as other parts of the city. The city's arterial roads are already getting choked with commuter traffic and interestingly the number of vehicles on Pune's roads at 12 lakh units already exceeds that of Mumbai despite the latter's population being about 5 times that of Pune. The city's inadequate mass transport systems spur the need to purchase vehicles and less than 25 per cent of the city's population uses public transport. Commuting time between two suburbs on the eastern and western ends of the city has gone up from 15 minutes 10 years ago to 45 minutes to an hour today. Activists like environment protection NGO Parisar's Sujit Patwardhan, who works specifically in the area of traffic, point out categorically that unless town planning is undertaken in a holistic manner (which minimises the need to travel to the city centre), which means provisioning for development of individual clusters with all requisite amenities, measures like the proposed Rs 1,500 crore Integrated Road Development Scheme by the Corporation would amount to piecemeal efforts. Sharad Mahajan, another town planner and architect who works with Mashal, an NGO that has been responsible for Pune's state of the environment report for the last several years, points to the fact that the last town-planning scheme undertaken for the city of Pune was way back in 1970. Subsequently, all development planning has been through the use of instruments like the Transfer of Development Rights and Accommodation Reservation: tools that result in ad hoc land acquisition and development, which allows no room for planning. The only way to undertake comprehensive planning is through bulk acquisition of land, says Mahajan. "That's fine but where are the funds for bulk acquisition?" questions V.W. Deshpande, Additional Director of the State Institute of Urban Development and former chief of urban planning for Pune, who retired earlier this year. "Bulk acquisition is easier in new towns and we also face a lot of opposition (from landowners) in bulk acquisition programs". Kareer however strikes a median between the two viewpoints. "A large part of the constraint is the availability of land, which is free from the several acts that govern ownership and acquisition. What we need is a development authority that can implement town planning schemes--acquire and pursue planned growth--and we are working on that; it should happen soon." The importance of planned growth is driven home by Dr. Erach Bharucha, a leading Pune-based surgeon and Director of the Bharti Vidya Peeth Environmental Education Institute in Pune. "The rural fringe of Pune has got urbanised even before a development plan come into play. Look at the major trunk roads like Satara, Nashik or Sholapur; it's all unplanned development. Take a simple case like a hill slope. In the absence of any demarcation of it as a public space, it will obviously turn into a slum since a bulk of the economic activity happens in the informal sector. And let's face it, if hypothetically you simply remove all slums, the economy of any Indian city will fall flat, so why don't we take into account all these factors and plan?" So that's the clear argument for ecological protection, creation of public spaces and low-cost housing all rolled into one, with the single point solution being city planning. Another malaise caused by lack of planning is the non-availability of appropriate infrastructure for migrants into the city, which has grown by 18 per cent over the last decade. "While the large players in the auto and engineering segments are able to manage stress and productivity levels in the workforce, it is the medium and small scale industries that are seeing actual fall in productivity and very high stress levels caused due to rapidly changing market forces and technology. We need to build in infrastructure for retraining of people to increase efficiency levels and keep them gainfully employed," says Prof. A.P. Kulkarni, Chairman of the Centre of Studies in Social Sciences, Pune. Benninger adds: "We have been constantly stressing the need for profiling of immigrants into the city and build in reception centres for immigrants, skill training centres also so the immigrant population can be managed in the long run. There is no way immigration will slow down. Cities have a psychological impact on people given that they see ready money there, unlike the villages where they have had to live with barter systems. We might as well provision for this influx while planning." While planning is certainly the answer to the city's woes in the long run, the immediate symptoms are no less alarming. Saaz Agarwal, Director of IT startup Seacom, points to the clockwork stoppage of power supply for several hours every Thursday. "We have been trying to figure out if we should declare Thursday as the weekly off, given that so many companies in Pune actually seem to do that but we get no clear answers from the MSEB." "There is a perpetual shortage of 20-30 MW. Power goes off for three-to-four hours daily," says A.H. Firodia. Chairman Kinetic Engineering, one of the cities' largest manufacturing companies. MSEB officials on their part refused to accept a shortfall situation in power supply when contacted by this correspondent and maintained that it was purely for maintenance work that the power was being turned off. Whatever the reason, it's enough to put off potential business entrants into the city. As Baba Kalyani, Chairman, Bharat Forge, another mega investor in Pune with seven plants employing in excess of 6,000 people, says, "The number one bottleneck is transport followed by power, and unless I see some concrete evidence that these issues will get sorted out, I will rethink new investments in this city." On issues of sewage treatment and water supply too, a study undertaken by the CDSA a few years ago shows up some alarming facts. Most of the zonal wards surveyed showed a "moderate water supply" problem, which means there was a 35 per cent shortfall in the per capita supply of water (135 litres per person per day being the requirement). "On sewage the situation is that we need 12 treatment plans for the volume of sewage generated and we have just two, as a result just 8 million gallon tons of sewage per year gets treated and 20 million gallon tons is getting dumped into the rivers untreated," says Benninger. Small wonder then that there is an increase in the number of gastro enteritis cases. Says Dr. Bharucha, "Don't go by the mortality rates caused by gastro; go by the morbidity, that is how many people are sick. Mortality may be down since cure is possible but prevention is not something we are even beginning to tackle. There is a resurgence of malaria in Pune that is purely due to slow-moving water. Respiratory diseases are on the rise and more resistant strains of practically every kind of bacteria including TB is seen in the city." "We realise fully that this is the time to act and have started on measures in practically every area. We have a Rs 400-crore project currently underway for enhancement of the water supply system, another Rs 100-crore project for sewage treatment apart from the extensive transport infrastructure and intra-city mass transport plans," says Kareer. The Pune Municipal Corporation is also pushing developers to plan townships along the lines of the 400-acre Magarpatta township in east Pune, which is being promoted as a self-sufficient township. "We foresee at least 10 such townships in the near future," says Kareer. Other plans include an ambitious skybus project linking key city points, in collaboration with the Konkan Railway and a Rs 2,000-crore metro rail project to link the city with a proposed international airport at Chakan in the city outskirts. It's clearly a city that is preparing for growth on a war footing. Summarised by local MP Suresh Kalmadi: "These are the days of competition. We are up against Bangalore and Hyderabad, and the Indian city of the 21st century will not be either of these, it's going to be Pune. We are making sure we avoid the mistakes these cities have made." Undoubtedly, Pune still has time to avert major bottlenecks that could turn off investors, but no amount of investment in infrastructure can help if the fundamental premises of planning are ignored and it's an issue Pune's citizens have understood only too well. As Bharucha sums up: "When quality of life dies, cities die. We simply have to prioritise and think of development in sustainable terms". It's a thought the citizenry is pushing for; and the administration needs to pick up the cue. -Priya Srinivasan PERSONALISED
TRAVEL LOGS Bangalore: Having forsaken public transport like most Bangaloreans--the city has 400 times more two wheelers and 72 times as many cars than registered government buses--and being dependent on one's own mode of transportation for more than a decade, it is a different kind of experience as yours truly travels from the middle class residential neighbourhood of Jayanagar to Majestic (or the Kempe Gowda Bus station as it has been renamed now), the heart of the business district of Bangalore. The Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation might proudly say it runs 3,207 buses daily, makes 45,000 trips covering 6.92 lakh kilometres and ferries 28 lakh passengers a day, but on this day (a Tuesday morning if you must know), the quality of ride gives an indication why most Bangaloreans choose to give it a miss. It still remains a mystery to me that India does not have any athlete of Olympic calibre in spite of rigorous training, which one is subjected from a young age chasing a bus to board it. It is not just one's sprinting ability, but one needs to have sharp elbows to bludgeon one's way into the bus, as queues are considered passé. 'Survival of the roughest' seemed to be the motto. If my wife's constant jibes and the reflection in the bathroom mirror have failed to convince me how much out of shape I am, my inability to squeeze into the first two buses heading towards my destination drives home the point. Finally having succeeded in boarding the third one, and hanging on to dear life by executing a trapeze act on the footsteps of the bus, it takes me around 50 minutes to cover the 12-odd km to my destination. One happy denouement: it costs me just Rs 4.50 for the ride. Less than 15 per cent of the cost compared to, say, if I had hired an autorickshaw and probably a little bit physically fitter than what I otherwise would have been. Approximate travel time by car from Jayanagar to Majestic: In 2004: One hour Three years back: 45 minutes 10 years back: 30-35 minutes -Venkatesha Babu, Bangalore Chennai: Ten years ago, the city buses wore a smart look. Buses more than five years old were taken off the roads. Today, the odds of a regular commuter travelling in a bus that breaks down, is once a month. Harassed bus drivers, who drive the vehicles across caved-in roads or highly-crowded regions, are occasionally tempted to short circuit routes. My personal experience has no doubt been everybody's personal experience one time or the other. When I take the bus from Tiruvanmiyur in South Chennai, near the coast, to Arts College in Anna Salai, the arterial hub of Chennai, a distance of 14 - 15 km, one morning, the journey itself takes 50 minutes, which is not too bad. However, I walk the 1.5 km from my house to the bus stand, which took another 20 minutes, a further ten minutes wait at the stand and another walk of 10 minutes to reach my final destination, an office complex on Marshalls road. I could have taken an auto rickshaw both ways and saved the time walking - but that involved another Rs 40 outgo! Of course, the bus is crowded; jostling is inevitable and school children/people with big bags use up more space. A blind eye has to be turned at eve-teasing, since it is difficult to spot the culprit and stamp his feet with a vengeance. Many in the bus carry the expression that one finds in people using crowded elevators-a vacant, weary patience. But when I get down, I discover another good reason for not using the auto rickshaw. There is a neat slit in the base of my handbag and my purse is missing. Luckily I don't carry credit cards and ATM cards. (We hear that there is a school near Saidapet that provides a full -fledged course on pickpocketing to aspiring youngsters.) A sympathetic co-traveller remarks: "Didn't you hear the conductor urging more loudly than usual 'move up, move up?' That was his way of warning passengers that pickpockets had boarded." -Nitya Varadarajan, Chennai Gurgaon: Gurgaon has all the trappings of a city: the fancy offices, residential apartments and the swank shopping complexes. It is just that there is no decent way to get from Point A to Point B inside the city. The concept of public transport is quite alien out here. Towards the latter half of day, I try to get from IFFCO Chowk (which is one of the main intersections of the town) to DLF Square, a two-km distance. There are three choices--you can either take an inter-state bus, a rickety old auto rickshaw or a cycle rickshaw. The last method is the one I use, because despite the relatively high chance of getting squashed into Human Pizza, ones olfactory senses would stay secure. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. The short ride takes almost ten minutes in rush-hour traffic on a mode of transport with no shock absorbers whatsoever. Not that the other two methods have shock absorbers either. But while breathing diesel fumes, one cannot get too concerned about the lower back, can one? There is no way for anyone living in Gurgaon to survive without a car or a two-wheeler. It helps that Gurgaon produces more cars (Maruti Udyog) and Motorcycles (Hero Honda) than any other city. In the past one year, Gurgaon has added over 25,000 cars and six times as many motorcycles. And that's just the vehicles that get registered in Gurgaon; actual numbers are estimated to be at least double, and it shows. Everybody in this town drives, but if you can afford a Rs 30-lakh apartment, you can afford a car. There is talk of extending the Delhi Metro all the way to Gurgaon by 2010, but by that time the insularity of Gurgaon residents would have reached endemic proportions. Anyway, as for this correspondent, after being showered in dust and diesel, he is quite happy to return to his taxi. -Kushan Mitra, Gurgaon Hyderabad: The travel was from Mosapet to Begumpet, a distance of 7 km, which takes me 25 minutes. This is the bus number 10K, which is a faster Metroliner so the fare is Rs 5. An ordinary bus ride is cheaper by a rupee (for a regular traveller, the best option is to take the monthly pass or a season ticket which is quite economical). Both the buses belong to the APSRTC (Andhra Pradesh State Transport Corporation). The frequency of the buses, I gather from a burly passenger seated next to me, is about 5 minutes on the route falling along the highway because about three or four bus numbers ply there But if one is dependant on only one frequency, which takes him or her closest to his/her home, then the frequency is about 30 minutes. The journey is relatively comfortable, as even on a working day, it is not quite jam-packed. The first few rows of seats, have traditionally in Hyderabad, been reserved for women, who are also travelling in good number (seats eventually get full). Must add however that I could not avoid but observe an acute lack of chivalry in the Hyderabadi, which becomes evident when the seats for women become full and the bus gets relatively packed. Example: a lady is trying to balance her child with one hand and her school bag with the other. Nobody offers her a seat; eventually, yours truly makes the concession. I ask her how travel is on most occasions, and she says it is quite comfortable as she has to take the journey everyday to school and back. Pulling out a sandwich from the bag for her daughter, she tells me that eve teasing does happen at times, "but then, one has to just ignore it and go one's way.'' However, she tells me before getting off the bus that she is learning to ride a two-wheeler and will soon be riding her new Honda Activa. -E. Kumar Sharma, Hyderabad Pune: Spoilt by Mumbai's BEST bus service--in a single line, that was my realisation after an amusing 15-minute bus ride from Model Colony, a residential area (about 4 km from the city centre), to the Pune Municipal Corporation in the city centre. A few enquiries at the bus stop equips me with the bus numbers to look out for. I am helpfully advised by a group of teenaged boys at the stop to take a rickshaw instead. The bus arrives and again I am helpfully alerted. The bus, sagging at the seams however, goes right past without so much as slowing down at the stop. Whatever happened? Overcrowded? I ask my mates. No, you didn't flag him to halt, says the surprised teenager. A woman who looked my age decides to take me under her wing, and I am directed to stand right next to her. The next bus arrives within minutes (this is a bad route to gauge frequency on since a number of buses from the stop went to the city centre) and determined I push in right after her from the rear door only to be screamed at soundly by the conductor. A pair of men was trying to unload bundles of brooms at the rear door and I was apparently in the way. So was this the exit door then? Again I draw amused looks; you can enter and exit from any of the doors. I am bemused; try that in a BEST bus and every passenger will kill you with his or her looks. Anyway I am wiser for the experience and frankly relieved I don't have to squeeze my way through standing passengers well in advance of my stop so I can alight from the front door. It's that easy to bend the rules, though I still don't know which was the entry and exit point but obviously I had gone wrong at least once. Finally, it's easy to blame the service, but am I being a model citizen? -Priya Srinivasan, Pune
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