When any city witnesses scorching growth, it also invites a spate of problems which if not addressed swiftly would lead joepardise development. Bangalore is the new entrant to the list of those cities whose woes are just getting bigger by each passing day.

The Metro city enjoys a pleasant and equable climate throughout the year and is the darling of all the IT companies. With mammoth IT and ITES companies being set up every other day, it also brings a lot of migratory population to fill jobs created by these IT companies.

Sadly the infrastructure has not been able to keep up the pace of the city's development and is now threatening its growth. In short the growth has outstripped the infrastructure demands.


Traffic happens to be one of the biggest challenges the city currently faces. According to newspaper reports, 600 new vehicles are added to the city every day.

A drive past Hosur Road leading to the infamous Electronics city and one will feel the strong pinch of what Bangalore’s chaotic traffic has to offer.

At peak hours you could consider yourself lucky even if you travel at around 5 km per hour. Vehicles move bumper-to-bumper and if a bus or a car breaks down, then it is even worse.

Your wait seems endless unless you have a book or a chatterbox around for company. The radio channels usually warn people about the current traffic jam and Hosur Road happens to be one of the usual villains.



When I used to commute to Electronics City, I literally spent four hours everyday travelling although my dwelling place was around 13 kms from it. Luckily for me, my career took a turn and Elec City was rubbed off from my list. It is not surprising that lot of people prefer not to take up jobs which requires commuting to Electronics city.

There was this ambitious plan of having an elevated flyover from Madiwala till Electronics city, which would drastically cut down the time to commute. I have no idea about the progress of this, but if it does see the light of the day, would finally end the agony of daily commuters of the Hosur Road.

With most of the professionals opting to use their own vehicles to commute to their workplace rather than the ever-unreliable public transport, it only compounds the problem.

Several of the companies have their own buses for employees, but they too have their share in adding to this traffic jam. With the administration making new promises and breaking the old ones everyday, there doesn’t seem to be a solution in practice, rather it remains only on paper.

With new flyovers commissioned, but each one taking their own sweet time it only compounds the underlying problem. The Airport Road flyover was started in Feb 2003 and recently most part of it was opened, but construction over a few places is still going on.

In this traffic woes all happen to be contribute to the chaos. Cutting across lanes happens to be the norms of the day. I am familiar with a few villains. BMTC buses are mandatory in this list.


They are more often than not, driven at reckless speeds with no concern to the small vehicles. They seem to follow the philosophy of "Make your own road". They will stop their bus to pick up passengers at any point regardless of whether it’s a traffic signal or in the middle of the road. Blaring horns make no difference to them. Close to their heels come auto rickshaws whom we all love to hate.

They have the "say" in where you want to go and no amount of pleading or pestering would budge them unless a traffic cop is lurking nearby. They believe traffic rules are only for the meek and they are above the law. Anything and everything they do happen to be their unwritten rule and everything is legal.

Overcharging seems to be the order of the day for them and they too like the BMTC buses would stop anywhere to pick or drop passengers which furthur slows down the traffic. And not to mention 'Bicycles' although seem trivial are one of the silent devils. 'One Way', 'Two way' or 'NoWay', nothing seems to stop them.

Traffic snarls are complemented with accidents. With two wheelers being the usual victims of accidents, the failure to implement the helmet rule has increased the fatalities.

When an accident occurs, most of us just remain mute spectators rather than helping the victim. The sole reason being that we dont want to be engtangled with any legal procedures. I was witness to one such incident. There was an accident which occured at one of the busy intersections. I just remained a mute spectator. The victim had a head injury and no one was willing to take him to the hospital including me. Out of the blue, one person came in and just got hold of the injured person and put him in the auto he was travelling. He was asking if anyone would accompany him. I was ashamed for not taking the initiative and agreed to accompany him. I was ashamed for not taking the initiative and agreed to accompany him.

We admitted him and the cops came and they seemed to be very courteous and infact thanked us for saving his life. I am not aware as what happened to the victim after that. I then spoke to this person and he said he was an NRI and had come down from the US and failed to understand our mentality. He was asking me "Why can’t you help each other". I wish we all were like him. I was just hoping to get the courage to help the next victim. We never know when the roles get reversed. We might be the victims one day.

We love to curse the traffic police at Bangalore. They are actually doing a thankless job. I see traffic police everywhere during the peak time trying to reduce the traffic with all the dust around them. Many would say that they have a very abusive tongue, but considering their occupation I can hardly blame them. The government now says that METRO Rail is the solution to the problem. The concept was introduced somewhere in 1993 and has hardly made any progress. Ambitious plans are lined up by the administration, but until they are turned into reality, we have nothing but hope to live with.