Suggestions for Bangalore Metro Rail

I recently came across an article which said that the Bangalore Metro Rail is soliciting suggestions from the general public for the train station design. I sent them the following suggestions. You too can email them your suggestions: bmrcl@dataone.in.

Suggestions for the train stations:

• Please design every train station so that people are encouraged to follow queue system. This is especially necessary for buying tickets.


• Please install 2 to 4 automatic ticket vending machines at every station. These machines should be able to accept cash and credit cards.


• Please encourage local artists & poets to design decorations for the stations. They can design benches, shades, wall decorations, posters with short poems, etc. Please don't cover every available part of the station with commercial advertisements only.


• Please also design major stations to have LCD screens which show:
  1. Train and bus time-tables.
  2. A dynamic map of Bangalore (similar to Google maps) showing the location of all trains and major buses in real time, using GPS technology.


• Please install security cameras at all the railway stations. These cameras should record 24 X 7. Recordings more than one week old can be erased.


• Please also design 'park and ride' type of train stations, especially near out-lying areas. These should be stations which provide ample and secure parking place for people to park their vehicles there and use the train to commute. If necessary, these parking areas can be restricted to people who use the train daily - employed people and students.

Suggestions for the trains themselves:

• Please install security cameras INSIDE the train compartments. These cameras should also record 24X7. Impose strict fines and penalties on anybody who damages or defaces train property.


• Please design a maintenance center where EVERY train compartment will be washed and cleaned EVERYDAY, both INSIDE and OUTSIDE. Please don't allow the compartments to gather dirt like the Indian railways trains.

I hope Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation is seriously looking into these and similar suggestions from the general public. I hope at least a few of these will be implemented.

Wipro BPO's employee in Pune is raped and murdered

Came across a gruesome piece of news this evening. Not able to get it out of my head.


Edited on 12/13/2012 with the following note: The original version of this article contained partial quotes from the below linked articles with proper link attribution. I consider this fair-use and not scraped content as defined by Google. Yet, Google informed me that this violates their policies. Therefore, I removed the quoted portions of the articles. You can read the full articles from the links below.


Wipro staffer raped, killed in Yahoo! News

BPO shocker exposes lapses in Telegraph India

Wipro cabbie not new to crime, say cops in Times of India

BPO cabbies' profiles not checked in Times of India

This news is particularly chilling for us (myself and thousands of other Indians) because we have female siblings, relatives and friends who work in Indian tech industry, travelling at odd hours in cabs and rickshaws. Just like the boyfriend of the victim in this latest incident, we have been on the phone with our relatives and friends, while they travelled to or from their offices at odd hours. It is all too easy to imagine the worst happening to our near and dear ones...

It is not just the female employees who are in danger. Just this morning, I read several reports of male employees of tech companies in Bengalooru being assualted, kidnapped and murdered for their money. Some of these incidents involved crimbes by drivers of cabs for the companies of the victims.

In Dec 2005, when writing about another rape and murder incident of a BPO employee in Bangalore, I had quoted Wipro's measures to ensure the safety of their employees as a good example of what should be done. Ironically, this latest incident has happened despite those measures being in place. Rules and processes are only as good as how well they are practiced.

Being a tech industry insider I know that not all rules and processes are followed - this includes even the processes that are part of our core work. Over a period of time, things become lax, omissions and errors creep in. Every company's management is aware of this. As such, Wipro (and other companies) should have more stringent reviews and audits in place to ensure that the rules which affect the physical security of their employees should be practiced with no lapses.

I know that the rules governing the security of the office locations, gates, access to certain areas, cameras inside the office, etc. are very stringently practiced in Wipro. So, it is difficult to understand how in the matter of employee's physical safety, there could have "been a criminal manipulation of our processes", as admitted by T K Kurien, Wipro BPO's president himself.

But I am not blaming the company alone. Every individual also has a responsibility to be extra vigilant and take precautions for personal safety. The lamentable and ineffective state of law enforcement and judicial system in India makes criminals incredibly brazen, almost to the point of being stupid. Yet, they get away with their crimes more often than not, which is what makes them so brazen and reckless. In such an atmosphere nobody can afford to be careless when it comes to personal safety.

The perpetrators of this crime should get the most stringent punishment and hope they get it soon. The criminal of the 2005 rape and murder case in Bengalooru I referred to earlier, has still not been sentenced, while the trial proceedings drag on. This despite that case being pursued in a 'fast track' manner by the court system!

Hopefully, this incident makes everyone extra vigilant.