Our Bureau

Bengaluru: Namma Metro and the BMTC seem to have sorted out the is-sues that seemed to block the Transport Department’s idea of issu-ing a common mobility card which users can swipe at met-ro stations as well as on BMTC buses.

T r a n s p o r t m i n i s t e r Ramalinga Reddy told ET that Namma Metro has agreed to its suggestion of is-suing a common mobility card. Both the entities, however, have to prepare their respective backend to make the proposed card work, the minister added.

The common mobility card project, in which a single smart card is used across various modes of transport, had run into trouble. A recent meet-ing between Pradeep Singh Kharola, MD, Bang alore Metro Rail Corporation (BMRCL) and EV Ramana Reddy, principal secretary, Transport Department, has paved

the way for the idea to move forward. The common mobility card proj-

ect, however, is going to take some time as both organisations will have to first prepare their backend software infrastructure to make the proposed card functional.

Meanwhile, the BMTC is readying its own smart card which commuters can use only on buses. The utility will launch this card in September.

Earlier, the BMRCL had reserva-tions about making such a card func-tional in view of the integration is-sues at the backends of both utilities. Metro officials feared multiple cards issued by multiple vendors will pose challenges with their unique config-urations.

BMTC’s own smart card, which will soon reach commuters of all

categories including passholders, is to act as the base for the common mobility card. The commuters will first get to use them on BMTC buses and then its use is expected to be integrated with other systems. The BMRCL, however, has its own smart card and commuters have been using it as they get a 15% dis-count on ticket fare.

The BMTC plans to make its card as an open loop system which could be used for paying for parking, tour fee collections and at other merchant establishments in and around the BMTC depots.

The BMTC hopes its customers, 30% of whom are passholders, will switch to smart cards which will also make the job of ticket fare collection easier and transparent.

2THE ECONOMIC TIMES | BENGALURU | MONDAY | 18 JULY 2016Namma Bengaluru

Visit This |TheatreCaste in Practice

@KannadaPraje

In Blore,small late night(2am/4am) restaurant owners

catering 2 small BPO emplyees r beaten up by polic f not bribed

SHORTTAKES

Send your feedback toebengaluru@timesgroup.com

A seven-year-old male leopard was rescued from Kethohalli on Sun-day. Passersby noticed the hurt leopard, which was unable to walk and hiding in the bushes, and informed the forest department. Forest of-ficials, who rushed to the spot, captured the wounded beast and sent it for treatment. The leopard was later to the Bannerghatta park.

Hurt Leopard Rescued, Sent to B’ghatta

BBMP corporator for the Lakkasandra ward, Mahesh Babu (40), and two other were killed in an accident near Srirangapatana on the Bengaluru-Mysuru highway on Sunday. The corporator was returning to the city after visiting Chamun-di hills. The accident occurred when anoth-er car coming from the opposite direction rammed into the medi-an, crossed lanes, and hit Babu’s car.

Corporator, 2 Others Killed in Accident

The Central Crime Branch has arrested four police constables who are said to have taken money from candidates taking the civil police constable examination in return for access to the question paper. Prelim-inary investigation revealed that they assured access to questions to be asked in the examination and collected ̀ 3 lakh from several candidates.

Four Police Constables Arrested

AN

IMIS

HA

At the ongoing AHA! Theatre Festi-val for Children, experience a multi disciplinary story-telling experience where the audience is part of the performance. “Paper Window”, pre-sented by a South Korean visual thea-tre company, combines drawings and animation with an interactive per-formance. Open to children over four years. At 7.30 pm in Ranga Shankara, JP Nagar. Tickets at ̀ 200

NO GREEN LIGHT YET Both utilities need to prepare their backend systems ready

Sobia.Khan@timesgroup.com

Bengaluru: Home prices are un-likely to drop from the current lev-els despite tepid sales and rising inventory in the city.

The city’s residential real estate capital value remains unchanged at ̀ 5,334 per sqft in the first half of 2016 compared to the second half of 2015 , according to Idirees Chenakkal, head of Research & Consulting at LJ Hooker, a real es-tate consultancy.

According to Knight Frank, an-other consultancy, the overall weighted average prices have con-tinued to climb upwards and seen a

year-on-year rise of 3%. The con-sultancy expects a measured growth in the second half of 2016 compared to the same period last year.

“It is important that the develop-ers relent a bit on the prices so that the sector will see a positive mo-mentum in sales volume and old inventory will begin to ease. This will bring in the much-needed sta-bility to the sector,” said Satish BN, executive director, south, Knight Frank India.

Bengaluru, which remains one of the best performing real estate mar-kets in India, has been facing a slow-down for over a year now. “So far, sales have been flat as buyers contin-

ue to hold on to their decisions. We expect the market to recover by the end of this fiscal year,” said Nesara BS, executive director at Concorde Group, a real estate developer.

Weak economic conditions and concerns over a likely fall in prices

due to negative sentiments are cit-ed as reasons for buyers to defer their plans. However, builders say prices are unlikely to fall. “The Bengaluru market is facing a chal-lenge in the closure of transac-tions, not enquiries. A delay in de-

cision-making is the main problem but at some point people need to start to pick up the stock,” said Koshy Varghese, managing direc-tor at Value Designbuild, a builder.

North Bengaluru, comprising lo-cations such as Yelahanka, Hebbal, Hennur Road and Jakkur, has had its growth potential slip as launch-es have seen a steep decline in the first half of 2016. South Bengaluru has emerged as the worst perform-ing market with the highest num-ber of inventory and slower sales. This has resulted in projects locat-ed at distant locations without suf-ficient infrastructure. Only east Bengaluru has drawn some trac-tion due to affordability.

GROUNDSWELL New housing projects decline in north Bengaluru while east is drawing buyers for its affordability quotient

Rising Home Inventory may not Lead to Lower Prices

LOST IN TRANSLATION

Jakkur Wetland Turns Wasteland; Redesign Begins

Bharath.Joshi@timesgroup.com

Bengaluru: The much-cele-brated ‘constructed wetland’ model at the Jakkur lake, which was showcased as the way for-ward to rejuvenate other lakes, has gone wrong. Water experts have gone back to the drawing board to redesign the model.

The man-made wetland was introduced in the lake following its rejuvenation about five years ago. It was part of an integrated wetlands ecosystem comprising a sewage treatment plant (STP) with a 10-million-litre-per-day capacity and a wetland with nu-trient-absorbing plants. Water treated by the STP flowed into the wetland where it was puri-fied further.

The model was hailed for keep-ing the lake at the prime of its ecological health.

However, researchers from the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) have found water qual-ity to be worsening with higher levels of nutrients — nitrates, phosphates and ammonia — and increased levels of bio-chemical oxygen. Also, the wa-ter is turning greenish due to algae.

Reason: The constructed wet-land is not working efficiently.

“It’s not only receiving water from the STP but also from an adjoining stormwater drain carrying sewage. So treatment efficiency of the wetland has

gone,” said Priyanka Jamwal, fellow at the ATREE Centre for Environment and Development.

Raw sewage from Yelahanka, Allalasandra and Kogilu is en-tering the lake through the wet-lands. On top of this, research-ers said the wetland has not been maintained properly.

“The wetland is overloaded due to which nitrate and phos-phate levels have gone up,” said TV Ramachandra, a professor at IISc Centre for Ecological Sciences who was instrumental in rejuvenating the Jakkur lake.

The 160-acre lake was con-structed about 200 years ago to meet water needs of the Jakkur village.

Experts are working out a new wetland model. “A layered or multi-tier wetland is something everybody agrees upon. We’re trying to calculate load, reten-tion and rate of water flow. A design proposal should be ready in a month’s time,” said Annapurna S Kamath of Jala Poshan, a citizen group that adopted the lake in 2014. The BBMP has earmarked Rs 3 crore for this, she said. “We’ve asked the civic body to come up with a wetland maintenance docu-ment.”

The BWSSB will upgrade the existing STP to treat 15 MLD of waste water. “With this, rede-signing the wetland is inevita-ble. It’s senseless to bring sew-age all the way up to the lake instead of treating it at the source,” Ramachandra fumed.

IT’S GOING SOUTH

South Benga-luru has the highest

number of inventory and slower sales

Untreated water flows into wetland defeating a major lake revival project

CHALLENGES ARE MANY

Officials fear multiple cards issued

by multiple vendors will pose challenges

Bengaluru’s residential market had a net addition of 18,129 new properties in the first half of 2016 across developments, 40% lower than the second half of 2015. Considering the net addition, the total invento-ry in the first half of 2016 stood at 125,738 units across developments.

Net Addition Declines 40%

About 1,500 saplings were to be planted on that Saturday. All permissions were in

place and 500 volunteers had al-ready signed up. On Wednesday, Sumant Parmar, the man who works behind the scenes at Say Trees, a nonprofit, got a call from officials that they cannot plant the saplings at the said location.

“Once committed, we cannot go back on it. So we quickly started searching for an alternative,” rec-ollects Parmar. “By that evening, we found another location, got it cleared and ready by Thursday, moved the saplings by Friday and did the plantation on Saturday,” he says.

The 26-year old project manager at a multinational IT firm first reached out to Say Trees as part of his company’s corporate social re-

sponsibility initiatives. His interest in environmental issues drew him in and he soon found himself work-ing closely with Kapil Sharma, who founded the organisation.

Together, they scaled up the small-scale volunteer movement

into an estab-lished NGO by 2013. The organ-isation has planted and raised over 40,000 saplings in the city till date and has over 90% survival rate.

With Sharma away from the coun-try for over a year now, Parmar runs most of the show.

“A lot of people want to do some-thing for the environment,” he says. “But they are unsure of how

to go about it. We provide a plat-form and make it easier for them to get involved.”

Large-scale planting drives hap-

pen on Saturdays and typically draw hundreds of volunteers, who wake up early on their week-end, travel to the location and

spend a few hours getting muddy. It takes a great deal of effort, Parmar acknowledges. He and his team work day and night to ensure that everything goes fine.

“Finding a suitable location which can guarantee safety of the planted trees and getting approval from government and other stake-holders is the most complicated part of our work,” says Aastha

Sahai, another organiser. “And Sumant manages almost all of this, despite his day-job.”

As his job starts at noon, Parmar spends the first few hours of the day in research, meeting officials, getting permissions, sending out emails and updating social media for Say Trees. Some of the fund-raising and corporate partnering happen during lunch and tea breaks. At other times, he relies on his partner who recently quit his job to join the group full-time.

“Going back to find the saplings you planted as grown trees is a sat-isfying experience,” says Parmar. For him, spreading this joy to more people is the best part of what he does.

Nirupama.V@timesgroup.com

His Volunteers ‘Say Trees’ and Strive to Turn City Green

Your Monday Morning Mood Enhancer

Good Samaritan

40K AND COUNTING

The organisa-tion has plant-ed and raised

over 40,000 saplings in the city till dateSumant Parmar

Ipsita.Basu@timesgroup.com

Bengaluru: His love for art and the need to have it around him at his of-fice led Dr Paul Christadas Salins, 62, to start painting seriously. Though he had always had a love for art and often painted pictures, the need for it to turn into an expression was stronger when he started his journey as the medical director and vice president of Mazumdar Shaw Medical Centre in 2009.

This was aided by the fact that Dr Salins had undertaken a brief study of art history at the Cambridge University, UK, about two decades back. “During the course of my medi-cal career, I took a few months off to pursue the study of art. Since I have always been enamoured by the beau-ty of it, the aim was to garner a deep-er understanding of various art works,” he says.

This fascination has lent itself to his artistic abilities at the Mazumdar Shaw Cancer Center, where he heads

the cranio-maxillo surgery depart-ment. Besides having four of his 20 artworks at the centre’s library walls,

Dr Salins organised an art symposi-um titled Art for Life. “We had con-struction going on. We covered the area with colourful boards and, with materials at hand, put up installa-tions to beautify the space,” he shares. The centre, emphasises Dr Salins, besides being an institution of excellence for medical facilities, strives to be an amalgamation of bright minds inclined towards appre-ciation of various art forms.

Dr Salins, who packs a busy sched-ule, says he paints a few minutes

every day, sometimes even an hour when he can. If not that, he, “makes sure to see or read something about art, poetry or philosophy at least sometime during the day.” Along with art, the Dr Salins, also makes it a point to keep in touch with music. A self-taught pianist, he listens to the works of Johann Sebastian Bach every morning without fail. “I also operate with the music of Bach, which forms a great link with the transcendental, in art and science for me,” he shares.

His art has also helped him in his cranio-maxillafacial surgeries, says Dr Salins, where he and his team de-sign 3D models of the region to be op-erated upon to get a clear idea on the way forward for the surgery.

Some of his most loved artworks are the narrative power in the works of Michelangelo, Leonardo and Reuben’s, the play of colors by Turner and Van Gogh, the work of impressionists, the unique palate of Egon Schiele and the artistic provo-cation of Pablo Picasso, he shares.

This Doctor has a Weakness for CanvasHIS BRUSH WITH ART

LAK

H

Bengaluru: The state gov-ernment will make all its 10 RTO offices in Bengalu-ru paperless in about a month. “In about a month’s time, we will cov-er all RTO offices in Ben-galuru with online access for LL & DL and all offices in the state within this fi-nancial year,” transport minister Ramalinga Reddy told ET. ‘’We want to go to-tally paperless and don’t want people to visit RTO offices unless it is manda-tory like for taking a test for getting a licence. We have made Bengaluru bor-derless — one can apply at any RTO in the city,” the minister added.

10 RTO Offices to Go Online in about a Month

BMRCL, BMTC to Work on Common Tariff Card

THETIMELINE

2008BDA starts

rejuvenation

2010Restoration complete

Oct 2014BDA hands over lake to BBMP

May 2015Jala Poshan adopts the lake

Planting drives happen on Saturdays and draw hundreds of volunteers

City in NumbersEMPLOYEES IN ORGANISED SECTOR IN BENGALURU10.5

A COURSE IN ART

Dr Salins underwent a brief study of art histo-ry at the Cambridge University about two decades back

Dr Paul Christadas Salins and a few of his works