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Just for the poor:Just for the poor:a trickle of water, that too contaminated

IT city Bengaluru struggling with online voter registration.

Getting a new cooking gas connection.

Pan-India firm surprises city with very low bids for garbage tenders.

Bangalore leads the way with school sports startups.

Please, please, mera change vaapas keejiye, please sir.

2 CITIZEN MATTERS

Ever since the state Election Commission opened up the

voter registration for the summary revision earlier this month, the system has been besieged with problems.

With the online registration system available this time too, many citizens opted to submit their applications online. As on November 29th, 2,10,020 citizens

registered and 1,40,325 submitted their applications online. Many citizens who registered could not submit their forms successfully.

Some of them had registered during the earlier window in June, and complain that their application status still says, “Under process”.

A bunch of assembly constituencies, part of Batch I and II was open for registration till October

31st and November 29th. For the Batch III Assembly Constituencies including 28 constituencies within BBMP limits, applications for inclusion and corrections were from 5th November and close on 4th December 2012.

On 28th, the online system stopped working saying “Portal closed”. Volunteers from Smart Vote and other citizens raised this

VOTER ROLLS SUMMARY REVISION 2013

it city Bengaluru struggling with online voter registrationIn a city that prides itself on information technology, the Election Commission’s buggy voter registration tool online is frustrating citizens to no end.

CITIZEN MATTERS 3

issue with the office of the Chief Electoral Officer, Suranjana. This was subsequently fixed.

There were other errors faced by applicants, with cryptic messages like “Invalid string format” or “please enter a valid mobile number” . The latter message comes if you give initials in the name field while registering as a new user. (Reported by Arbind Gupta).

Says Bharani Ramakrishnan, a citizen from Bellandur ward, “after filling the form and after submitting it, I get a page that says ‘No applications’ and hence not able to generate acknowledgement”. This error was forwarded to the CEO’s email id, but there was no response.

Many applicants tried to figure out the best way of getting the system to accept the uploaded forms, even trying it from different networks and different browsers!

The tool has many flaws, including design issues and implementation issues. There is also a lot of carelessness for e.g. the senders name for the emails from Election Commission is “Test”! In the Form 6 application for new voter, the instructions are for downloading a PDF, but there is no download option. There is only the option to generate an acknowledgement, and that is also not a PDF. PDF stands for the popular portable document format is helpful for printing.

Once you download the acknowledgement, which is nothing but two copies of the

form 6 just submitted, there is no clear indication which form is for what. According to the CEO, the software was developed by CMC with the help of Microsoft. CMC is the former public sector Computer Maintenance Corporation of India, later acquired by TCS in 2001, during the privatisation drive.

Meeting identified major problems

On November 27th, Dr. Alok Shukla, Deputy Election Commissioner, Election Commission of India, New Delhi, chaired a meeting held at the office of Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka (CEO), with the CEO, BBMP Commissioner and DEOs of various districts of Karnataka. Maj Gen. Prasad and Uma Shankar of Janaagraha, an NGO and Cdr PG Bhat and Nitin Jagtap of Smart Vote, an NGO were also present.

In the meeting, Bhat explained his findings in the electoral rolls of 27 constituencies of Bangalore District. He pointed out the deletion of about 13 lakh voters from the rolls in the period of April to November 2012. Sample surveys have shown lack of diligence and violation of rules in this action. He is also raised the issue of the CEO’s website being unstable, unfriendly and unreliable. Many links on the site do not work. The Helpline 1950, advertised by CEO, has not been set up till date. The responses provided by the landline helpdesk 2266 0000 are not

helpful.Bhat raised the issue of the CEO’s

office not following data standards mandated by the Central Election Commission. Voter lists do not follow any naming conventions, making de-duplication more difficult. A few voter lists are not published, and some published ones are incomplete.

Several other issues were pointed out in the meeting. Large number of voter records have numerous errors. Several fields are blank in thousands of records. Wrong house address, sex, age, and relationship information abound. Thousands of voters are aged below 18 and hundreds above 120.

The lists have tens of thousands of duplicate records. House addresses are incomplete and inadequate in most cases. Suspiciously large number of voters is found in thousands of houses - up to 724 members in a house. Similarly lakhs of houses have only one voter each.

Election Commission directives not followed?

Directives from Deputy Election Commissioner Shukla issued directives to the Chief Electoral Officer C S Suranjana to send voter slips to every voter with Form 8 to correct errors, if any, in the voter data, as well as to every deleted voter in the current address; if the voter is found in the address, undelete and restore his record. If

4 CITIZEN MATTERS

photograph of the voter is missing, obtain photograph.

Shukla also asked the state election commission to fix problems including assigning an EPIC number to each voter in the correct format, removing duplicate entries and correct all the existing errors in the electoral rolls with a plan and target date. The CEO should ensure validation of data and employ more people if required.

For Murugendra Chigateri, an applicant, it took dozens of tries before he managed to submit the form successfully from his office location. However, many other citizens are still finding it a problem to register. On November 30th, after three days of struggle, Bharani Ramakrishnan has given up and says he plans to submit Form 6 manually.

Citizen Matters asked Suranjana on the problems citizens are facing with online registration. He says, “The only issue with online registration was that the server was down for a day. On that day, we got many mails from the public, and the site was up soon.” He says they have not come across other complaints such as data not being submitted or acknowledgement forms not being generated.

With just a few days to go for this window to close, will the CEO extend the deadline of December 4th? Deputy CEO Kulkarni P T says no decision has been taken yet. The CEO clarifies that only the ECI at the centre can take the decision. He says, “In the meeting with Deputy EC this week, some organisations had raised this demand. He has said that he will consider it.”

Meera K is a co-founder at Citizen Matters. Navya PK and

Commander P G Bhat also contributed to this story.

Sahaja Rao had shifted to her new apartment in Koramangala

five months ago and wanted a new LPG connection for her house. After asking several neighbours for available options and doing several rounds of the distributor for the required documents, she finally managed to get a new LPG connection for her new house. But then, it took her almost two months of repeated visits to the distributors and following up on the status.

This is the case with several people who are want a new LPG connections or want to transfer the connections from other cities to Bangalore. Here’s is a guide that will help you simplify the process of getting the LPG connection.

There are two types of gas cylinders available for domestic

use. You can choose from an option of a five kg cylinder and a 14.2 kg cylinder from public sector vendors depending on your needs. Jyothi Gas cylinders come in 33 Kgs,17 Kgs, 12 Kgs & 5.5 Kgs.

The difference between the public and private sector is that the a fixed number of cylinders (upto 6 a year) are available at a subsidised

LPG FOR HOUSEHOLDS

getting a new cookinggas connection

One of the first thing to be done when you move into a new house is getting an LPG connection. What are the options for getting cooking gas and how to apply.

Public Sector options for LPGBharath Petroleum (Bharath Gas)Indian Oil Corporation (Indane)Hindustan Petroleum (HP Gas)Private Sector options for LPGJyothi GasTotal gas

CITIZEN MATTERS 5

LPG FOR HOUSEHOLDS

rate (around half the price of that of non-subsidised gas cylinders) from public sector firms. The per-kg rate of non-subsidised gas supplied by public firms is comparable or higher than those supplied by private firms.

Also ration cards are compulsory to get a connection from public sector companies, whereas only address proof is required, if at all, for the private gas agencies.

Remember the regulator size is different for cylinders provided by public sector and private sector vendors. So you cannot interchange the cylinders.

Getting a new connection

Rohini Kishan, a resident of Austin Town, says, “The price of the cylinder differs from distributor to distributor depending on the public and private sector we choose. Initially it was very confusing for me on which one to choose.”

A distributor on condition of anonymity, says, “The price of cylinders and time taken for registration of new connection depends on the (individual) vendors and we just distribute the cylinders.”

New LPG Connection from public sector vendors

To get a new connection, you have to approach the nearest distributor catering to your area with the required documents. Any one of the following documents are required

Aadhaar Number (Copy of Aadhaar Letter)

Copy of house lease agreement / rent receipt

Copy of Ration Card Copy of Passport Copy of telephone bill/any other

utility bill Self declaration attested by

Gazetted officer.As per the new LPG control

order, only one LPG connection is permitted per household. You must surrender any additional connection.

Also only six LPG subsidised cylinders will be provided per year for refill. After that, each refill will cost the price of the non subsidised cylinder rate according to the new rule by the government. The average subsidised rate of a 14.2 kg cylinder is Rs 419.50 while the rate of non subsidised cylinders is Rs 883.50. (Private gas cylinders cost around Rs 980 for 19kgs)

You need to go to your nearest dealer and furnish a copy each of your identification proof and residence proof to a gas agency. It is mandatory to take a ration card for domestic connections from public sector.

The agency allocates to you a New Gas Connection Booking (NGCB) number that you need to remember. This number will be required while following up with the agency and also while booking new cylinder.Ensure that you are provided with a booklet/passbook. The agency will make a record of

your LPG bookings. The agencies claim to provide the connections within a month.

The security deposit depends on the agency which includes the

following: The deposit for each metal

cylinder. The regulator Refill cost of the first cylinder Gas tube Administration and installation

charges.

The average security deposit for 14.2 kg cylinders is Rs 1450 and Rs 350 for 5 kg cylinder.

New LPG connection from private sector firms

For private cooking gas vendors, no documentation is required. They take a deposit (around

3000 Rs, partially refundable) and give the connection within a day.

Portable gas cylinders with

attached burners available, off the shelf at some local retailers. These are convenient for occasional basic cooking needs.

Booking a new LPG cylinder

If you are a HP gas customer, you can book your cylinder in person, via telephone or online. To book the cylinder online, you have to have an account with the HPGas Consumer World. You can create this account on the HP website jihaan.hpcl.co.in/booking.

WHILe refILLInG Check the seal of the cylinder Check the safety cap. It should not have any cracks.

remove safety cap and check for leakage from the valve. Usually in case of any leakage from the cylinder valve, the safety cap will pop off at the time of removal. This can be further reaffirmed by placing your thumb on the cylinder valve.

Get the new cylinder connected with the stove and make sure that no leakage is observed.

Pay cash and acknowledge the second copy of the cash memo or refill voucher.

6 CITIZEN MATTERS

For Bharatgas bookings, you can go online at www.ebharatgas.com where you have to create a login ID and password. Here you can place an order for refill cylinder online. This facility is available along with booking a cylinder in person and calling your local LPG agency. Refill booking through SMS is also available.

For Indane gas, you can visit their website at www.indane.co.in and register and create your account. You can either get a new connection or submit a cylinder refill request depending on your needs through online booking.

With private gas vendors, it is usually a matter of calling them on the phone and cylinders are delivered the same day.

Transfer process

Within the same distributor’s area of operation

Provide your distributor your new address with supporting proof of residence so that he effects the change in his records and your future supplies will be sent to your new place of residence.

Within the same town

In case your present distributor does not service your new place of residence, you may approach your distributor with your original subscription voucher. The distributor shall prepare a transfer termination voucher (TTV) for the place of your new residence. You can then approach the nearest distributor serving your new place of residence along with proof of residence, TTV and DGCC booklet (Domestic gas consumer card). The distributor shall prepare a Transfer Subscription voucher (TSV) against your TTV and shall provide you a new consumer number. These

details will be updated in your DGCC booklet.

In this case of a shift of residence within the same town you are not required to surrender your equipment. Hence you need to carry your domestic cylinder and pressure regulator to your new residence.

While getting transferred out of town

In case you are transferred outside the town, you are required to surrender your equipment i.e. cylinder and pressure regulator to your current distributor. You may approach your

distributor with your subscription voucher and DGCC along-with your Cylinder and Pressure Regulator. The distributor in turn will prepare a Termination Voucher (TV) in your name for your new place and refund the deposit held against the cylinder and regulator. At the new place you can approach the nearest Indane distributor for resuming your Indane supplies.

Anisha Nair is a Staff Journalist at Citizen Matters

Apart from the LPG gas cylinders, the induction stoves are trending in the market. Several brands like Prestige, Bajaj, Philips, Morphy, etc have come up with induction stoves that run on electricity. These stoves have options for boiling, frying, heating, and other such options. The temperature can be controlled and the cooking mode can be set. Specially designed flat-bottomed vessels are used for cooking.

GARBAGE CONTRACTORS NEW TENDERS APPROVED

pan-india firm surprises city with very low Bids for garBage tenders

A Bengaluru beleaguered

with garbage collection and disposal is all set to see the

next 3 years of contracts

kickstarted this month. However,

one firm has bid far lower rates than expected.

This month, new contractors will start garbage clearance

work in 168 wards in the city. These wards are covered in 77 packages. Fifty of the 77 packages have gone to a single company, named BVG India Pvt Ltd. This company has also bid for extremely low amounts in most packages. In one case, its bid amount was 50% lesser than BBMP's estimated amount.

But there is another story behind these low amounts - BVG seems to have far lesser machinery and staff than required. BBMP's tender documents specify the number of staff and equipments required. BBMP officials have said that BVG's resources are lesser than its prescribed standards. West zone officials have mentioned this in the

CITIZEN MATTERS 7

document that BBMP Council approved. The city council had approved all tenders on October 30th.

Eleven of BVG's packages are in BBMP's west zone. In the document, the zone officials have said that the bid rates of BVG are very low in the 11 packages. In one case, the bid rate was about 35% less than BBMP's estimated rate. Officials said that

BVG did not have enough vehicles and staff to do the works for the 11 packages.

The document says that BVG has suggested some measures - such as, to have one tipper auto collect waste from 1000 houses. But this violates BBMP's standard, of having one for every 600 houses.

While BBMP standard is to have each pourakarmika sweep one

km of road, BVG has said that its pourakarmikas will sweep 4.8 kms of road. BVG also said that there will be one pourakarmika per 300 houses, and that pourakarmikas assigned street sweeping work will also help with door-to-door collection.

This is not all. BVG has submitted an affidavit saying that if works are not done properly, BBMP does not have to pay the company. West zone officials had recommended that BVG can initially be given one package, and that based on performance, the other 10 packages

GARBAGE CONTRACTORS NEW TENDERS APPROVED

pan-india firm surprises city with very low Bids for garBage tenders

Tender STATUS Total packages - 91 Stuck in court - 2 Approved - 77 re-tendered - 12

8 CITIZEN MATTERS

will be given to it. But it was decided later that work on all packages will start simultaneously.

B T Mohan Krishna, Technical Advisor to the Commissioner, says, "Because of the current garbage situation, we have asked government to approve all packages. This is a service contract, as opposed to a works contract. So it is fine, as long as BVG can get the work done, with whatever resources it has." Mohan Krishna is in charge of the tender process, at BBMP's head office.

BVG and other winning bidders have all got LoAs (Letter of Award) from BBMP already. LoA is a written confirmation to contractors that they have won. Now contractors have to submit an implementation plan. BBMP has to approve this plan, and then sign an agreement with contractors.

"BVG is yet to submit its implementation plans. As per these plans, if they seem capable of doing the work, we will sign the agreement," Mohan Krishna says.

BBMP is also awaiting state government's approval for the tender process. These approvals are likely to come about soon, since there is pressure from the High Court or Karnataka on this as well. In the November 6th hearing of a PIL on garbage disposal, High Court had directed the government to approve the tenders within two weeks.

No new contractors for 30 wards yet

There are 91 garbage tender packages for the entire city. Each package covers 1-3 wards, and tenders are for three years. Of the 91 packages, two are stuck in court. Hence in September, BBMP had called tenders for remaining 89. Of these, 77 were approved in the BBMP Council session of October 30th.

The 12 unapproved packages have been re-tendered now. Some of these packages had not gotten any bidders at all, while a few had bidders quoting either too high or too low prices; some bidders were disqualified for technical reasons.

BBMP has floated new tenders on November 5th. November 16th is the deadline for contractors to submit bids.

The packages that are being re-tendered are:

Ramamurthy Nagar (ward no 26) and Vijinapura (51)

Chokkasandra (39) and Peenya Industrial area (41)

Devarajeevanahalli (47), SK Garden (61), Pulakeshinagar (78)

Kushaal Nagar (31), Sagayapuram (60)

Kavalbyrasandra (32), Muneshwara Nagar (48)

Jayanagar East (170), Guruppanapalya (171)

Sudham Nagar (118), Dharmaraya Swamy Temple Ward (119)

K.R Market (139) Padarayanapura (135),

Jagajeevan Ramnagar (136) Gandhinagar (94), Dattatreya

Temple (77) Dayananda Nagar (97), Prakash

Nagar (98), Sri Ramamandira Ward (108)

Rajmahal Guttahalli (64), Kadu Malleshwaram (65)The two packages that are

stuck in court, belong to south zone. Together, they cover five wards - Hosakerehalli (161), Ganesh Mandira (165), Yadiyur (167), Chikkakallasandra (183) and Yalachenahalli (185).

To check the list of the 77 approved tenders, names of contractors visit http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/view/4660

Navya P K is Senior Staff Journalist at Citizen Matters.

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CITIZEN MATTERS 9

In order to develop sports activities in Bengaluru and around the

country, more and more sports management companies are engaging directly with schools.

Attribute it to the lack of playground or lack of space in the schools or sports in itself being not inclusive, various schools have employed a cluster of companies like Edusports, Leap Start, Khel Point and Sports Mentor to kickstart sporting activities. These companies

primarily provide sports coaches and train in various sports to students.

B e n g a l u r u - h e a d q u a r t e re d Edusports which started in 2009, feels that the kids around the country are not playing up because the sports is not inclusive. The company claims that with EduSports they are trying impart right skills and fitness to all the kids. In Bengaluru alone, the company caters to 40 schools that include the

likes of DPS and Kumarans.Saumil Majmudar, co-founder,

EduSports says that the education is not complete if the schools don’t have same structural quality of rigor , curriculum, assessment, program monitoring with sports as in academics. He adds, “There is a very nice structure followed, say for example when maths is taught. If one is a genius and the other is a relatively poor student more time is spent on the poor (underperformer) student. But in sports it is just opposite.”

This seems to trigger the company’s motto is to integrate sports with the education. And to build this platform EduSports has built a curriculum with standards set by the National Association for Sport and Physical Education, a professional body in the US. It focusses on the right exercises and training to make the kids more fitter, in order to build a sustainable sports physique.

Ask Saumil what is the guaranteed by-product on the services of EduSports, he replies, “Whenever anyone plays any sport, why should he think that he will become a sports person. He or she can just play sports to specialise, to be fit. Like academics when we learn

Bengaluru’s impact on India’s sporting scene in badminton, tennis, cricket and hockey is now being followed by pioneering firms pushing for focussed sports education in city schools.

SPORTS EDUCATION IN SCHOOLS

Bangalore leads the way with school sports startups

Pic courtesy:edusports.in

10 CITIZEN MATTERS

CITIZEN MATTERS 11

maths and science when don’t need to be a mathematician.”The sheer arguments of whether the kids need to play

can be understood from 3rd edition of the EduSports School Health and Fitness Survey covering around 49,000 children from over 100 schools in India. “School going children across the country are headed for an unhealthy and unfit adult life as they possess poor body strength, poor flexibility and have undesirable BMI (Body Mass Index) scores”, the study reported.

It covered 49046 children in the age group 7 to 17 years from 104 schools in 54 cities across 18 states. The assessments were done in the academic year 2011-12 and covered 7 basic fitness indicators. They were: endurance, anaerobic capacity/explosive power, flexibility, body strength (upper, lower, abdominal) and BMI or body mass index.

One of the major findings was that one out of four children in the metros is overweight.

Taking a different approach, with a USP of ‘we create champions’ is the Bangalore-based company Khel Point , a 3 months-old startup. Khel Point focusses on ‘teaching the sports right’ from the beginning.

Khel Point is eyeing government and low investment schools as of now. According to the company, most youth who yearn to go into sports are from the tier 2 schools. To drive this, the company has tied up with Rotary since Rotary has a tradition of adopting schools. Sahkari Vidya Kendra in Jayanagar and Elite School in Austin Town, Neelasandra are some of schools the company caters to in their sporting activity.

Srinivas Kumar, founder, Khel Point feels that private schools have good investments and they do not really need external help. He says, “We want to grow organically as this is an operationally challenged environment. We want to cater to two sports a years for boys and girls i.e. basketball and badminton. Student like badminton because of Saina Nehwal and basketball because they think it will help increase in their height and physical fitness.”

The company utilises the physical training periods in schools and engages with each class for over 40-45 minutes.

ChallengesBoth the companies have faced similar challenges in

initially meeting schools and convincing them of the need and scope for sports education.

EduSports says that meeting school leaders itself was a problem in the early stages. Also, they found out that most of the people don’t agree that sports is not inclusive in their school, especially in the metros like Bengaluru.

Abhishek Angad is a Staff Journalist at Citizen Matters.

Pic courtesy:edusports.in

12 CITIZEN MATTERS

CITIZEN MATTERS 13

Just for the poor:a trickle of water, that too contaminatedBengaluru now gets 1400 million litres of Cauvery water daily, but hardly any of this reaches the poor, though they are ready to pay. Slum dwellers wait for hours for the water to come, or spend hefty amounts to buy it.

Saroja, a domestic worker staying in Ambedkar slum in Ejipura,

spends much of her time waiting near a public tap every day. There is no individual water connection to her house, and the only sources are two public taps nearby. The tap gives water for 2.5 hours everyday, but this could be at any time during the day.

Saroja checks up on the tap every now and then to collect this water, even though she knows that it is mixed with sewage. Both she and her 24-year-old daughter Mangala, are responsible for collecting water for the household.

This story is the same for most slums across the city. Many slums do not get water even as apartments and layouts nearby them do. Bengaluru now gets 1400 million litres of Cauvery water daily, but hardly any of this reaches the poor.

In many city slums water comes to individual houses once in one or two weeks. An example for this is Gopalpura, where residents were lathicharged by the police when they protested recently, demanding water.

Then there are a few slums that have absolutely no supply network.

For instance, 17 slums along JC Road in central area have zero network. In many slums, residents rely heavily on public taps, community wells, private tankers etc., either waiting for hours for the water to come, or spending hefty amounts to buy it.

A 2010 survey by NGIL (Next Generation Infrastructure Lab), which is part of the NGO CSTEP (Centre for Study of Science Technology and Policy), gives a clearer picture. They surveyed 35 slums in different parts of the city, covering 1000 households overall. Ten percent of households in each slum was interviewed.

The survey found that in 27 out of the 35 slums, none of the interviewees had any individual connection. Public taps were the most common source of water. For six slums - each in different parts of the city - public taps was the only source. Similarly, two slums in east outskirts relied completely on private vendors. Only seven of the 35 slums reported getting water from tankers.

Contamination of water is another issue in slums. Rajendra Prabhakar of the NGO PUCL-K (People’s Union for Civil Liberties -

Karnataka), says, “Since most slums are located near major drains, their water will be polluted. Most slums use borewell water (which is pumped into public taps, hand pumps etc). No tests are being done to test the water quality.”

In Gopalpura slum, water is smelly, almost brown in colour. But most people do not boil the water before drinking it. Veena S, a resident here, says that she simply ties a cloth around the water tap so that some dirt is caught by the cloth. “Infections and fever are very common here. We just go to a clinic nearby, and get an injection for Rs 20-30. If we store the water for 3-4 days, it looks oily,” she says. Veena says that the water quality has improved a little after their recent protests.

Even by BWSSB’s estimates, the slum water situation is poor. A senior BWSSB officer talks about the 96 core area slums that are going to get water network as part of the Cauvery Stage IV Phase II project. The officer says, on condition of anonymity, that only one-fourth of these 96 slums get good water supply currently; even though half the slums do have a good individual

WATER PROBLEMS IN SLUMS

14 CITIZEN MATTERS

supply network. “Another 40% slums have irregular supply - only some pockets get water, and supply comes once in 5-8 days. In the remaining 10%, there is no network at all.”

Work on these 96 slums is expected to start soon; four NGOs have already submitted survey reports and plans for creating the water network. The NGOs are ICDSS (India Community Development Service Society), MSSS (Mythri Sarva Seva Samithi), NESA (New Entity for Social Action) and Mahatma Gandhi Trust. Under the project, BWSSB actually has to cover 362 core area slums, but work on the other slums has been delayed. Though the entire project was supposed to be completed by September 2013, BWSSB aims to complete it by 2016. BWSSB has to repay its project loan to the funding agency JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) by 2016.

Why no water?

Much of the supply network in slums was created since 2000; before this, there was hardly any network in slums. But many residents could not pay bills regularly, and BWSSB then diverted the water to new layouts.

While BWSSB blames slum residents for not paying their dues, residents say that they would not get water even if they pay. Syed Zikria, 68, of Gopalpura slum, says, “Even if water does not come, I am charged the minimum bill amount. If some people do not pay, water does not come to the entire lane.”

Many other residents are unable to pay since their bill has escalated to thousands of rupees, because of pending bills and the interest on them. The BWSSB officer (quoted earlier) says that this is a chicken-and-egg situation. “Initially when they get connections, residents are willing to pay. But many local BWSSB offices

do not give the first bill on the first month, and only give cumulated bills for many months that come to Rs 500 or so. Residents cannot pay this; so they pay small amounts and the arrears grow; gradually many stop paying. Because of this, and due to increasing demand from new layouts, BWSSB diverts the water, and then slum residents stop paying altogether.”

The officer says that the four NGOs in the Cauvery project have requested BWSSB to waive off the interest on bills, so that residents would have to pay the principal amount only. BWSSB will have to send the waiver request to the cabinet; so far, it has not yet decided on whether to do this or not. In 2008, BWSSB had made one such request for one-time waiver to the cabinet. Specific interest amounts were mentioned against each household, and sent to cabinet.

The request remained pending for about two years; it was only in 2010 that Cabinet finally gave its nod. In these two years, the interest on the earlier bills kept on piling up. “Finally when the waiver came, residents still had the newly accumulated interest to pay. It came up to almost as much as the waived amount. The calculations of BWSSB engineers were also wrong in many cases,” says the officer. Most people did not benefit from the waiver, though on paper it seems as if they did.

Jayanagar MLA B N Vijayakumar says that the government waiving off about Rs 4 cr should have solved the issue. “I will check with BWSSB about whether interests are still pending. Waiving off interests will help slum residents pay bills regularly in future.” Vijayakumar gets regular requests from slums in his constituency, to supply water or

CITIZEN MATTERS 15

Percentage of respondents using each source is marked in different colours. WOn (WO1, WO2 etc) are slums in west outskirts of city, Wn are in west, SOn in south outskirts, Sn in south, NOn in North Outskirts, Nn in north, KCn in Koramangala, EOn in east outskirts, En in east, CCn in city centre. (In most slums, residents use more than one source, hence the total percentage may add up to more than 100. In a few slums, all interviewees did not respond, hence the percentages do not add up to 100.)

16 CITIZEN MATTERS

make repairs.In many slums, residents rely

heavily on corporators or MLAs to supply water or have new borewells dug. While elected representatives arrange these at times, there is no permanent solution coming forth from them. In many slums, residents did not seem to engage with BWSSB directly or knew whom they could contact in the Board.

There also a relief that BWSSB Chairman has declared for slums. He has said that bills can be waived for the specific days on which a household did not get water. BWSSB does have data on this, but the four NGOs have been asked for facilitate the waiver. They have to bring specific cases to the Water Adalats (BWSSB’s grievance redressal meetings).

Illegal connection is another problem. The JICA project aims to tackle this issue too - the plan is to legalise connections and to fix meters in all households free of cost, and to get residents to pay monthly bills from then on.

Slums can pay for their own water: BWSSB

In the past, there has been conflict between the ideas of BWSSB and that of NGOs/activists, on whether slums should be given

water free of cost. Ever since it created the slum networks since 2000, BWSSB has maintained that slums have to pay.

Under the JICA project, the four NGOs (mentioned earlier) have to survey all 362 slums. The survey of 250 slums have been completed, and the conclusion broadly is that slums can pay for the water they use. The survey indicated that many households had multiple earning members, decent socioeconomic conditions, and own gadgets like TV and fridge.

Citizen Matters has a summary of the survey done by one of the four NGOs, ICDSS (India Community Development Service Society). ICDSS was in-charge of surveying 53 slums in the west and southeast divisions.

The survey result do not paint a very rosy picture. Only about 37% of households had a hakku patra for their property. Most residents work as coolies, private factory workers or are self-employed. Over half the houses have area upto 150 sq ft only; only almost as many houses are pukka.

The survey also showed that nearly half the households earn Rs 2500-5000 per month, but that this segment also owns TV, phone, two wheelers etc. The minimum water bill, for consuming upto 8000 litres, is Rs 48. The survey concludes that they would be capable of paying the monthly water bills. It also found that about two-thirds of residents who did not have individual connections were interested in getting these. However, there were also one-fifth of households that earned less than Rs 2500 per month.

Kathyayini Chamaraj of the NGO CIVIC, says that slum residents are willing to pay for water, only because they already spend much higher for alternate sources. “Slum residents pay Rs 5 for every 15-20 litre pot of potable tanker water. This is more

than what well-off people pay. So they think that they might as well pay the minimum water charge. A minimum lifeline water supply should be provided free-of-cost to all slum residents and meters fixed,” she says.

Kathyayini says that fixing meters ensures right to water and enables residents to question BWSSB. She says that those who use more than the minimum supply can be charged.

CIVIC has already put forth this suggestion to BWSSB in a recent public conference, and the Board has agreed to look into this. But currently the Board’s position is that residents have to pay the bills. “As of now, we are spending about 70% of our income to pay BESCOM to pump water. We don’t get any funds from the government, and hence we need income from users. Also, paying for water ensures judicial usage,” says the BWSSB official. Vijayakumar says that residents are willing to pay Rs 100-200 per month for water.

While these discussions are going on, residents are not convinced that things will change soon. Veena of Gopalpura slum is also a member of the activist group Jana Seva Samithi. She says that they plan to give a report on the water situation to all politicians contesting in the 2013 elections. “We have given up on our current MLA - there has only been promises, nothing has been done. It is the same with all politicians. The problem is also with residents - once the issue becomes less severe, they stop talking about it. They vote for those who give them money.” Even then, Veena says that she will look forward to what happens after the 2013 elections.

Navya P K is Senior Staff Journalist at Citizen Matters.

CITIZEN MATTERS 17

“Please, please, mera change vaapas keejiye, please sir." She

was in her thirties, nicely dressed in a blue churidhar with a gold-ish lining, spectacled, and worried.

Furiously issuing tickets, the uniformed BMTC person she was

pleading with was in the far upper corner of my favourite red monster 500 C. The bus had already stopped at Marathahalli and departed. She panicked that she had not gotten her change back and had missed her stop.

This conductor, middle-aged, spectacled, unusually chubby-cheeked, had not even heard a word of her plea. One of us fellow passengers called out to him. In the meantime he had forgotten a Rs 15 he had taken for some other ticket.

TIN BOxES AND RED MONSTERS

please, please, mera change vaapas keeJiye, please sir

The harsh morning sun races in with commuters as the 848am 500C gets packed near Marathahalli. BMTC AC Volvos, called the Vajra service, is now popular with the well-heeled working crowd. Pic: SV.

18 CITIZEN MATTERS

It took him a full half minute of a speeding Volvo's ticking time to get that right. By the time he rushed back down the bus towards her, she had plea-yelled two more times.

"Eshtamma?" he asked, knowing full well she might not understand the words, exactly. Then he switched. "Kithna dene ka hai aap ko?"

"65 rupees", she said, "please jaldi deejiye, mera stop gaya". He fished out the money and gave it to her and then forgot she was already standing at the low floor central door.

He did not ask the driver to let her off. "Please door open keejiye, please, please", she nearly screamed. No reaction, almost as if he did want to.

Some fellow passengers directed their yells at the driver. "Back door open!" Telegraphic commands are often issued by commuters in buses to cut short time taken to utter complete sentences. The central doors in the Vajras are called back doors since they are at the 'back' with respect to the one in front.

The driver did not stop the bus and open the door. By then, fellow commuters with any empathy had taken in the mildly charged atmosphere. It took another screech from the lady and then the conductor yelled at the driver from the back of the bus to stop. "Door open maadi; ellithare".

And that was it. The bus stopped right there as it was about the enter the ring road from the slip road at the Marathahalli junction. It turns here from the Whitefield Road before proceeding to Agara near HSR Layout.

Relieved, the lady got off and ran back.Within seconds, the bus 'atmosphere' chilled. as if

nothing had happened. Everyone back to normal. The red monster thundered to the next stop barely 50 metres away.

In those two minutes of tension I heard the word 'please' uttered nearly a dozen times. I wondered what may have happened if it had been a meaner commuter or a rougher male. Altercations galore happen on BMTC buses especially on getting change, and 65 rupees is no small matter.

Language itself is key issue. Once on the front side of the bus, a high pitch wordy duel broke out betwen a returning woman commuter and a conductor who were across the language divide. The lady was speaking in Hindi, making no attempt to get help from any fellow passenger who could speak Kannada. The conductor pounced on her for speaking repeatedly in Hindi, and released his volleys.

I was witness to a different eruption in a tin box in Kadugodi, north of Whitefield one evening. This one involved men. There was no "please, please" at all here. It was the same 'give me back my change' demand. A Hindi speaking person yelled to join cause with the commuter who was asking for his change. The conductor asked him to speak in Kannada, and the supporter-commuter yelled back, "I'll speak in Hindi, you listen". A melee was about to break out.

One Kannada speaking passenger immediately stood

CITIZEN MATTERS 19

20 CITIZEN MATTERS

up and supported the conductor. He yelled at the Hindi-speaker, "Ivaru KSRTC union avaru appa, nodi neevu", referring to the 'powerful' union status of the conductor. How direct, and how political, I thought we Indians are when it comes to linguistic and ethnic lines. Clearly, a flexing of collectivism happened there.

Luckily, other passengers intervened and it cooled off, like it happens many a time. Sense eventually prevails, eight out of ten times, perhaps.

I have seen time and again, people from the North, simply assuming that Hindi will work in Bengaluru. True, we are 'comopolitan' and true, Hindi works and works well in many parts of the city.

But Bangalore is not BMTC. BMTC is after all a sarkari company and it's unions have a language element in them, just as unions of every other transport corporation in the country. Try talking Telugu in BST buses in Mumbai.

But Telugu or Oriya or any other language is not equal to Hindi, you might say. That's the problem.

There is an undercurrent of social hierarchy in many an assumption we make in Indian public life. Social hierarchies breed tensions one way or other. One reason Hindi is even attempted here by our fellow Bangaloreans from northern states is the feeling that it has become a defacto 'national language' in those states. And that makes it a level above in the linguistic hierarchy. Hence they feel speaking Hindi is legitimate in Bengaluru. (Going by the Constitution of India, we do not have a national language. Hindi and English are 'official' languages.)

There is not a whole lot of preaching I am going to do on this post on what needs to be done to fix all of this. For most Bangaloreans in public transport, these altercations

and loud disputes seem to have become a way of life. We do watch intently when a scene bursts forth. Most simply hope it will go away. And when it does, we consign our thoughts to the trash folder of our memories and let go.

Yet, there are things one can do.1. Try bus passes if you are more

than 15 days per month on the same route, especially if you commute both mornings and evenings. Some commuters return in office taxis, and that makes them less interested in passes. Still, I feel less people seem to be buying passes than is the potential.

A volvo pass pays for itself in 17 working days. A day pass on the AC buses (excluding airport Vajras) is Rs.100 today. The monthly pass is Rs.1700. So after 17 days, you ride free each day you take bus. This math though works only when your commutes are at least as long as 15 kms or more. For instance, ITPL to Bellandur.

Even if you use a two-wheeler or car on the other days, the pass will have still saved you trouble for the days you used it. It is the surest way of getting rid of the change problem. Life is so much easier. You can swing in and out of any bus you like through a whole month and use the system even on weekends. It is simply impossible for either BMTC conductors or commuters to have the right change all the time.

2. Learn a little, if not a lot, of the Kannada language. It is actually not that hard. We Indians are already born capable of speaking three or four languages. We forget that outsiders to India get intimidated!

An aside: When my wife Savita and I travel overseas, we've always tried to learn the basic lines, and most importantly numbers. Numbers are more useful than one thinks. Spain, Egypt, Greece, Peru, etc. It's the same everywhere, local language helps.

Recently we were in Turkey. This time, we messed up and forgot to do the basic run-throughs of Turkish and its numbers. Somehow we figured Istanbul was Europeanised enough and that English 'would work'. We discovered that the Turks in Istanbul tolerate English, they do not necessary appreciate speaking to tourists in English automatically. In smaller towns, English does not work outside the tourism circuit at all.

In Istanbul itself, one lady at an art centre for the Whirling Dervishes Islamic sect hung up on me when I called to ask the time of a show. In that moment of confusion, I realised with regret that all I would have needed was Turkish umbers to understand the timing of the show she was trying to convey. The Turks are nice people, just that they talk Turkish, no surprise there. It's a neat English-like script (not Arabic) and sounded very easy to learn, actually. Plenty of Hindi like words.

Back in Bengaluru, from Whitefield to Silkboard, we're nice people too. A microscopic amount of Kannada will help open a conversation with receive some warmth at the other end. Almost all bus conductors here know Hindi, it is not that they do not. And they speak it whenever they feel like. Some even don't approach commuters with Kannada anymore. I've seen tolerant red monster conductors simply open ticket-calling conversations in Hindi just assuming from the looks of the commuter that he's from 'the north'.

It's just how we sound to each other that gets us off on the wrong foot.

Subramaniam Vincent is co-founder and editor at Citizen

Matters.

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