BBMP seeks citizens support to end public urination

Bengaluru: The Budget Bus, an integral vehicle of the #MyCityMyBudget campaign, was flagged off by Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Commissioner N Manjunath Prasad in the presence of citizens and RWAs on Monday.

"Around 50 lakh people use BMTC buses. However, a survey reveals that people use 50 per cent of the trips to travel 1 to 2 kilometres. If citizens have access to citizen-friendly footpaths, they would prefer to walk than depend on transport," Prasad said.

"Bengaluru has roads and streets that stretch up to 14,000 km. However, many of these roads lack footpaths. Even if existing, many are not pedestrian-friendly. They are narrow, have missing slabs, dumped with garbage/debris and not walkable. Bengaluru weather is favourable for people to walk, but people feel discouraged due to lack of infrastructure.

Secondly, Bengaluru has 585 public toilets, but according to our population, we need at least 1600. There is a severe lack of public toilets.

Even some of the existing ones are not maintained, which discourages people from using them. BBMP has a budget to construct public toilets. However, we need the help of citizens in highlighting the areas where they feel a public toilet needs to be constructed or maintained better. The #yellowspotsbeda campaign as a part of MyCityMyBudget with Janaagraha is an effective way of crowdsourcing citizen inputs," he added.

"The #MyCityMyBudget, a collaborative effort of Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike and Janaagraha was launched on December 8 in the BBMP war room. Over 25 organisations have partnered with us this year, and we are hoping more will join us in the days to come. This year a special focus is given to putting an end to public urination, constructing/improving public toilets and making footpaths pedestrian-friendly.

As citizens, we can help BBMP identify the problem areas of our neighbourhood. Once identified, we can ensure they get into the plan of action. While the budget bus collates citizen inputs via offline mode, citizens can also share inputs online visiting www.yellowspots.in" said Sapna Karim, Head, Civic Participation Head at Janaagraha.