Biocon founder Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw has sparked a discussion on Bengaluru’s urban planning after sharing a graphic contrasting the city’s current infrastructure with what it could have been if designed with more greenery.
Sharing the image on X, Mazumdar-Shaw wrote, “This is how we need to design & plan our roads that reflects our garden city. Unfortunately it’s now a garbage city with shrinking greenery,”
The graphic compared 2 versions of an elevated road corridor. One side, titled “What we built,” showed a concrete-heavy stretch with captions claiming trees had been removed, footpaths and service roads eliminated and public amenities lost.
The other, titled “What we could have built,” reimagined the same corridor with retained trees, cycling tracks, wider footpaths and street amenities like lighting, benches and bins.
Take a look at the post below:
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What did social media say?
The post quickly caught the attention of social media users, with many blaming poor planning, weak governance and inadequate enforcement for the city’s deteriorating infrastructure.
One user wrote, “Can’t agree more. Administrators and politicians have joined hands to loot this city. They are interested in concrete roads as they can get more cut in iron, cement etc. They can’t get cut in the trees planted.”
“Indian cities are not sustainable. Paying taxes and costs like international cities and living lives like a poor country. Such a shame. No doubt why civil engineers do not exist in India. We live in software world,” commented another.
“Even maintaining what is built properly and enforcing laws without harassing itself will create a lot of relief. People have lost patience and no one wants to follow any rule,” wrote a third user.
“True, a proper planning, execution and law enforcement will start bringing results, though enough damage has already been caused. Currently, it is free for all. Garden city has become the Garbage city. Are the govt and Admin not aware of it?” said another.
“This is a great idea but is highly unsuitable for such a big city like Banglore. First is you can’t find such big roads in Banglore everywhere and second people won’t maintain those Taj Mahal type roads,” said one user.
“unless the corruption ends and there is some responsibility and accountabilty, nothing will improve. govt employees & administrators who are involved target how to get the cuts from overall budgets. do you think anyone sincerely plan for better bangalore and better life style ?” wrote another.
