A pigeon, Robert, builders and forthcoming election

http://www.thehindu.com/2008/04/30/stories/2008043050170100.htm

Robert, a 16 year boy died yesterday coming closure to the live wire in Bangalore yesterday. All he was trying to do was to catch a pigeon and lost his life. This news can be brushed away like any other death news. Why should we talk about it now. He died for simple reason - Building violation. The building on which he was climbing was constructed violating the norms. A 66 kva high tension wire was going few feet above the building.

Are the building violations common in Bangalore? Of course, YES. Sometime back, I had a chance to meet with top BBMP official. He mentioned that 80% of the buildings, both commercial and residential have violations ranging from 10% to as high as 50%. When I asked him he smiled saying "most of the times our hands are tied. all these builders are either politicians or hide behind politicians"

There are many software park buildings, where most of us work do not posses occupancy certificate to even rent/lease it out. As individuals, many of us all get cheated by developers in the name of approvals, noc, power of attorney etc. All the hard earned money coming from coding goes in drain. End of the day, you get mental stress. There are murders happening in every slum in the process of capturing land. It is a different topic to discuss.

Where do these builders get strength and power to take us for ride by violating all the norms? Here goes the story...

Almost all the assembly constituencies in Bangalore urban and rural district, most of the major political parties (BJP, Cong and JDS) have fielded either a builder or builder's beenamies. Katta Subramania, Rohan baig, Kupendra Reddy, Satish Reddy, Muniswamy, Ramalinga Reddy, Raja Subramania.... the list goes on.

I am not even talking about the nexus between politics and builders. Today, Builders themselves run the government. Who is going to care about by-laws, rules, approvals etc? In the outgoing assembly, 7 out of 10 (now we have more constituencies) were represented by builders.

So, what can we do? I know we can do very little in the process. Atleast we can try to identify the candidates before voting and make a choice.

Middle and working professional will continue to get harassed by builders. Low income and slum dwellers will be thrown out of Bangalore. Roberts will continue to die.

May Robert's soul rest in peace while builders look for winning the elections next week!

- a mail from a software engineer - to a voluntary group mailing list