The Back Story

Let’s start at the beginning. We purchased our plot around 25 years ago. It’s located in a little enclave of 2 streets. This enclave of about 2 acres was close to a large upcoming suburb in Bengaluru hemmed in by a large tract of litigated land on one side and a much larger tract of defence land on the other.

This meant that we had no paved road to our place. There was just a mud track that would disappear in the rains when we would skid and slide on our motorbikes – not a very nice experience.

As the land was litigated, we did not have a water and sewerage connection. Luckily, we got the electricity connection through the transformer in the wooded army land. For water, each plot drilled its own borewell and for the sewerage we built our own septic tanks.

The land had another complication with a small storm water drain on its west and south sides. This later became the receptacle for our sewage. Much to our dismay, we found that this drain would get blocked downstream much farther from our place with all the water and the sewage backing up on our road and overflowing into our basements. The ensuing clean-up was always difficult not to mention the astronomical amounts that we spent on repairing our flooded vehicles. It was almost tragicomical when we learnt that the drain was not even recorded in the Bengaluru Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) drawings.

Over time, the litigation on the adjoining land got resolved and a residential sub-division came up eventually occupied by a mix of apartments and homes. Our roads got connected and some semblance of order emerged. However, this patchy approach to our development has resulted in many of the troubles that we continue to face even today.

This is probably the story for many of us who have settled down in Bengaluru.

In the ensuing series, I would like to unpick through the symptoms that we suffer to get to some of the root causes of why we, as a city has come to this pass.

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