Bengaluru was once a city of gardens, cool climate and lakes. This was back in the 1990’s. Since then, Bangalore has become one India’s fastest growing city and now it is termed as the Silicon Valley of India.
Bangalore is the place where technology and start-ups are born and grow. Bangalore now has lakhs of people working in the corporate world, having the regional headquarters of some of the world’s most renowned IT companies.
Bangalore has now become the city where tech-savvy people want to visit and work in.Â
Every city that has grown or is growing at an exponential speed, becoming some of the world’s finest city for different sectors, has had to sacrifice something to achieve that growth.Â
Bangalore too, gave up something that was very precious. That was none other than nature. The greenery, natural water bodies, consistent weather or climate. All that has changed in the recent past due to the urbanization of the city.
Urbanization of BangaloreÂ
The September of this year was very unpredictable. Bangalore experienced the heaviest rainfall in the longest time, probably decades. Experts believe that this was due to the rapid yet sudden growth of the city which can be clubbed with the hasty and poor city planning during the past 20 to 30 years.
When the city’s land usage was analyzed, it was found out that about 86% of the land was built up in 2021. Thirty years ago, this percentage was only 21.
Last week’s rainfall has tainted Bangalore’s reputation of being ahead of the game of being a great city. There was waist-deep flooding and ironical network outages in different areas of the city. This has been disrupting the otherwise dynamic lifestyle of Bengaluru.
Climate change has been a major problem all over the world. It has also made millions realize the faults of systems, be it governance or infrastructure, due to unpredictable weathers and more.
This unprecedented flooding has made the citizens, not only of Bangalore but other cities as well, question the sustainability of the city.Â
Traffic has always been a significant problem and the one that does not seem to be improving. All of nature’s gifts have been replaced by concrete.Â
Cost of growth:
Big businesses have had a complaint that the recent floods and other disrupting factors have costed them millions of dollars on a daily basis.
Millionaire entrepreneurs had to escape their luxurious houses which was full of water on the back of tractors.
Insurance companies have estimated that the initial property losses amount to millions of rupees and the number was only expected to increase in the near future.
This chaos has led the IT giants, valued at 184 billion US dollars, to worry about their losses of money and resources.
“India is a tech hub for global enterprises, so any disruption here will have a global impact. Bangalore, being the center of IT, will be no exception to this,” said K.S. Viswanathan, vice president at industry lobby group the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM).
“It is not a city-versus-city story,” he stated. “We as a country don’t want to miss out on revenue and business opportunities because of a lack of infrastructure.”
Even before the floods, Outer Ring Road Companies Association, which comprises executives from Intel, Wipro, has warned about the inadequate infrastructure of the city. They even encouraged companies to relocate to a more sustainable city.Â
By the late 1990s, the city’s green cover had dropped to around 45% and by 2021 to less than 3% of its total area of 741 square kilometers, according to an analysis by T.V. Ramachandra of Bengaluru’s Indian Institute of Science (IISC).
Green spaces can help absorb and temporarily store stormwater, helping to protect built up areas.
“If this trend continues, by 2025, 98.5% (of the city) will be choked with concrete,” said Ramachandra, who is part of IISC’s Centre for Ecological Sciences.
Reason behind the floods:
Due to the rapid expansion, illegal structures were frequently built, This has had an impact on the hundreds of lakes of Bangalore and a network of canals that connected them all earlier. So when heavy rains strike, the drainage system is unable to keep up with the water flow.
The state government of Karnataka has stated that it would spend 3 billion Indian rupees to manage the flood situation and other related issues.
Bangalore’s traffic has been a topic that is frequently joked about. The devastating floods have proved that the city, although very ahead in terms of technology, lags behind when it comes to infrastructure.
Basics of infrastructure are still lacking, such as extensive public transport, a good drainage system, etc.
