Another day, another social media post narrating how poor Bengaluru’s infrastructure is. In a Reddit post, a user posted about a techie who apparently wastes 2.5 months a year in traffic. What should be a 30-minute drive to the office stretches into a weary 90-minute ordeal, repeated again in the evening. The social media post mentioned about the techie, who lives in JP Nagar and earns Rs 28 lakh annually.
Though his office on Outer Ring Road is only 14 kilometers away, his commute takes three hours a day. Over the course of a year, that amounts to 2.5 months of productive time lost in traffic — a “hidden tax”, as the post called it, exacted not in rupees but in hours of life.
“He pays Rs 6.5 lakhs in income tax. Another Rs 1.4 lakhs in GST on everyday expenses,” the Reddit post read. “The…taxes were meant to build something — better roads, smoother commutes, smarter cities. But planning went wrong. The money often went elsewhere. Ending up paying the hidden tax, not even having time to look back and introspect,” it stated.
Netizens couldn’t agree more
Unsurprisingly, the post struck a chord with many. One Reddit user remarked that engineers in cleaner, less-congested cities abroad could be “20% more efficient”. Another called Bengaluru “an orphaned child put to hard labour”, arguing that citizens see little return on their taxes.
Some responses laced frustration with satire. “Our government’s a genius for creating The Bengaluru Gridlock with our tax money,” one comment read. “The 3-hour commutes aren’t a bug; they’re a feature…a masterclass in meditation, not roads,” the comment added.
Political blame-game continues
The BJP on Saturday lashed out at the Congress government in Karnataka, accusing it of neglecting the state’s crumbling infrastructure while failing to deliver on its promises. Pointing to Bengaluru’s pothole-ridden stretches and broken roads, the party claimed citizens are being forced to bear the brunt of mismanagement.
The criticism came after reports that online trucking platform BlackBuck had shifted out of Bellandur on the city’s Outer Ring Road (ORR) because of chronic commuting and road issues.
Providing an update on the work done by the state government, Deputy CM DK Shivakumar said, “The work of filling potholes on the roads in Bengaluru is underway in full swing. Let the politicians handle the politics regarding this; we are doing the work of making traffic smooth. So far, more than 7 thousand potholes have been filled, and the work of filling about 5 thousand more potholes is ongoing.”
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