Founder’s Note

Since many years people from all walks of life have been expressing their concerns about the city losing its glory as the Garden City of India. Interestingly Bengaluru was the bench mark for many visitors to see their city to be one like Bangalore. The ultimate paradox as per few Bangaloreans is that when Premier of Singapore visited Bangalore in 1950s he wanted Singapore to be like Bengaluru – a Garden City while four decades later when Chief Minister of Karnataka visited Singapore he wanted Bengaluru to be like Singapore. The difference between the two cities was that one city achieved its goal and the other lost her glory despite all the efforts. Today Singapore is called city in a Garden and as per my research the secret behind their success was – A “Political Will, Professional Commitment, and People’s Involvement.”

Let us face the truth that we have lost more than 50% of green cover in last few decades. Also we have less than 1% of roof top greenery which is an alternative for lost greenery in growing cities. This technology has been adopted in all major developing cities around the world. To compound our woes we have also lost around 70% of water permeable areas including lakes and water bodies in and around Bengaluru. On the other side population has grown many folds and it continues to grow with each passing day.

Water requirement of the city has increased many times and ground water is getting exhausted at much faster rate than nature can replenish it. More than 60% of bore wells or open wells are non use now and unfortunately the city does not have much alternative like river or sea. This is a major area of concern for the residents of Bangalore. Pollution levels in the city have also raised many folds and the outskirts of the city have become dumping yard for waste. The million dollar question now is do we have a solution to this crisis. Fortunately yes we have. Today we have experts and technology that is used by cities like Singapore and other green initiative cities around the globe.

What we need to do is change of attitude and let go off ego. All governing authorities, politicians, professionals, industrialists, corporate and all the citizens need to come together to save the future generation. For Bangalore it is now or never .Our efforts also can bear fruit and will be a success story only when three Ps play a key role –

A “POLITICAL WILL, PROFESSIONAL COMMITMENT AND PEOPLE’S INVOLVEMENT”
MAKE GREEN AS MUCH AS WE CAN
SAVE GREEN AS MUCH AS WE CAN
GIVE GREEN AS MUCH AS WE CAN.
HEMA KUMAR