Bengaluru Crumbles As Power Games Continue

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]Chief Minister Sidra Mayam got teary eyed while >> the anchors are going breathless. The tickers are running DK Shivumar Chief Minister historic moment and we sitting here at Mo going historic for who? Let's tell you what's actually historic about Bengaluru. In 2025 this city's residents lost 168 hours sitting in traffic. That is seven full days gone. A 10 km drive takes 36 minutes. Bengaluru is now the second most congested city on the planet. Not in Asia on the planet.

[00:00:29]That's a historic moment right there.

[00:00:30]And do you remember 2024 when people in parts of the city in the Silicon Valley could not flush their toilets when tanker mafias were setting their own prices and the government just let them?

[00:00:40]Every single one of Bengaluru's six water assessment units is classified as overexploited. The natural groundwater recharge is 148 million L a day. The city drinks 10 times that. 10 times. The government's response. They dug bow wells. Researchers had told them it would not work. They dug the bowwells anyway. Now here's the part we really need you to stay with. Who held a portfolio of Bengaluru city development for the last 3 years? Who was directly in charge of BBMP, BDA, BWSSB, all the bodies responsible for the city's roads, water and urban infrastructure during its worst crisis? DK Shivkumar and today he's been elevated to chief minister.

[00:01:17]The CAG found that Karnataka borrowed 63,000 cr in a single year to fund its guarantee schemes. That is 37,000 cr more debt than the previous year.

[00:01:25]Capital expenditure meaning actual infrastructure fell by 5,229 cr incomplete projects surged by 68% and while the state was borrowing all that money it was not even paying its existing bills. The Karnataka State Contractors Association has alleged 37,370 cr rupees induced remain unpaid across the irrigation department, the Greater Bengaluru authority, housing, the water resources department and more. Roads halfbuilt, projects stalled, contractors unpaid and the government taking on fresh debt to fund new announcements. In 2025 26, Karnataka will spend 48,000 cr solely on interest payments. Not on hospitals, not on schools, not on fixing the storm drains that drowned the IT corridor every single monsoon. It will spend 48,000 cr on interest on the cost of yesterday's borrowing. Congress said they were different from the BJP.

[00:02:15]Different how? When are the questions?

[00:02:18]We watched prime time coverage for the last 72 hours. Not once, not once did any anchor ask what is Shivkumar's plan for Bengaluru's water crisis? What does he intend to do about a city that is literally second on the planet for congestion? How does he plan to govern a state whose debt is projected to touch 8.14 lakh cr rupees? Here's the thing for Bangaloreans sitting in their modest apartments watching the lake that turned into a layout outside their windows listening to traffic that has not moved in 40 minutes. That is history. The slow, grinding, unglamorous history of a city being failed in real time. Nobody's coming on air to explain why. And maybe that is the real story. I'm Manishadi.

[00:02:56]Thank you for watching First Things Fast. Law.