Alongside the vast majority of Home Buyers who write the Bribe off as cost to get that Dream Home ownership process concluded, there are also trendsetters who have made a highly commendable example of standing up and saying “I WANT IT, BUT THE RIGHT WAY”.

SunCity Apartment Owners Association (SAOA) has been one of these trendsetters, following the No-Bribe Khata Registration process for its Members, as well as sharing their Lessons Learnt and Best Practices with other Associations in Bangalore. Their journey has been difficult, has required time and commitment from the Association Leads, but then the triumph over wide-spread corruption is no mean achievement!

Here is an excerpt from their website where they provide all information regarding their journey.

“16-Aug-09 is another historical day for suncitizens residing at Suncity Apts, near Sarjapur junction, Bangalore when 50 Khatha completed without paying any bribe and were distributed by MLA, Mr Satish Reedy, Bommanahalli constituency. Addressing a gathering of 200 Suncity residents, Mr Satish Reddy congratulated the association office bearers on undergoing the process of legally obtaining khata without bribing anyone. He offered the residents to come forward and contact him for any issues concerning various Government departments in his constituency.
Although the journey was long to reach to this milestone and it took nearly 6 months but Kudos to our office bearers Kashinath Prabhu (Secretary), Vidyasagar Magdum (Treasurer), Chander hass Banotra (Vice-President) and our senior citizens especially Mr Ashok Kumar Dube for doing wonderful job on publicity, organizing camp for common documents, helping BBMP in arranging documents, visiting BBMP office minimum once every week and persistent follow ups.”

Here is an interview of the Association Leaders, recently conducted by Citizenmatters:

http://bangalore.citizenmatters.in/articles/view/2140-suncity-residents-khata-no-bribe

ApartmentAdda has immense respect and appreciation for Association Leaders, who don’t care a hoot about the job being ‘Thankless’ or ‘Voluntary’, and continue the ‘toil of care’ with as much professionalism and commitment as their day job.

We wish them cooperation from the community and more such triumphs!

Has your Association also done a commendable service for the Community, that you want to share? Do write to ApartmentAdda, and we would love to showcase it.

Residents of Parijatha Apartment said “No” to noise this Diwali and celebrated it with only light producing fireworks.

As part of a social initiative drive, the residents got together to welcome Diwali with clay Diyas and lights. Kids were also not disheartened as they enjoyed the Diwali by lighting noiseless fireworks such as Flower pots and Chakras.

Katyayani, a resident of Parijatha Apartments said “We got together to celebrate lights on Diwali and enjoyed it so very much. My son Nandan and other kids and toddlers were also enjoying lights instead of getting frightened by loud noises of crackers. We people of Parijatha are happy for taking this initiative and we would like to widen the commencement to others.”

Celebration continued at Parijatha apartments with lights on Diwali!

Figure 1-Ms Gigi’s team working on their Diyas

designer diyas.That was the way the Palm Meadows Members of  Lions club of Whitefield  decided to celebrate Diwali 2009.The  Maduranagara ( near Varthur in the larger Whitefield area)Government school has  been adopted by The Lions club of Whitefield .

Figure 2,Ms. Mala, Ms.Madhu & Ms.Gigi are seen with the happy children, sporting their handiwork

A large number of Member couples   of Palm Meadows made the Diwali of these school children a truly special one .Mr Anuj  Valmiki of Palm Meadows also shared that the kids enjoyed making the Diyas as much as the volunteers who  helped them do it.

A truly special Diwali for the deserving!

ONAM – The festival is all about relishing on the grand Onasadya (traditional feast of Onam), shopping, family reunion and welcoming King Mahabali by spreading good cheer. Onam  in a community celebration has its own charm. Oasis Breeze the home of Apartmentadda celebrated Onam in  a traditional way. What else could have made the celebration a grand success  than for the complete Breezers(  Oasis Breeze residents) participation.

There was the traditionalPookalam( flowers rangoli), Onasadya( plantain leaf  platter for onam festival), dance, song , lights , music  and  best of all the  spirit of wearing a  traditional  Kerala attire for the celebration.

Breezers   started the Onam with Pookalam, community sport events like Tug of war  followed  by Onasadya. Late evening there was lighting of lamps, followed by cultural events like dance  and song.

The fun , the colours of festival, the lights, the music and most important  all the Breezers coming together  is what made the Onam Celebrations a cherished one in Oasis Breeze Apartment.

]]> http://apartmentadda.com/blog/2009/10/30/onam-oasis-breeze-apartments/feed/ 3 http://apartmentadda.com/blog/2009/07/28/is-bribe-a-mandatory-part-of-khata-transfer-in-bangalore/ http://apartmentadda.com/blog/2009/07/28/is-bribe-a-mandatory-part-of-khata-transfer-in-bangalore/#comments Tue, 28 Jul 2009 09:06:51 +0000 san http://apartmentadda.com/blog/?p=103 Most of us would let out a helpless sigh and say – Yes..
The SunCity Apartment Owners Association (SAOA), proudly and strongly says – NO!

Here is a community that refuses to choose ‘comfort over virtue’, and is showing the path to a bribe-less Khata Transfer.

Here is the complete article on BangaloreMirror: No more bribes

ApartmentAdda has another reason to be glad about this achievement – the Khata Transfer post on this blog was written with inputs from another SunCityite – Khata Transfer what and how

Are you aware of the collective power that you as an apartment community hold, to conserve your immediate ecosystem?

The theme of the World Environment Day 2009 is “United to Combat Climate Change”. This post discusses how as part of a united apartment community we can make a positive impact to our shared piece of earth, which as an individual may not be equally substantial.

Here is a list of 5 such initiatives that any apartment community can undertake. Please let us know if you could think of more -  the birds, bees and butterflies would thank you!

1. Rainwater Harvesting
2. Car Pooling
3. Waste Segregation
4. Lake Development
5. Plant Trees

Let us explore each of these.

1. Rainwater Harvesting

Do you remember filling buckets of rainwater when you were small and then using it for fun games? Or opening your mouth up to a hailstorm? You had just reused rainwater. Rainwater harvesting is exactly that – collecting rainwater for reuse.

You may ask – why harvest, doesn’t rainwater naturally seep into the underground water table and ultimately get pumped into our taps? The answer is NO! With the growing cityscape, the absorbent soil surfaces are covered with buildings or tar roads. This causes rainwater to flow into drainage systems or dirty water bodies. This water then has to be run through expensive recycling and purifying systems to make it usable by us. When our bore wells dry up (as the water table gets depleted ), this is the water we buy from expensive tankers.

Rainwater Harvesting entails collecting the rainwater that falls on our roof and balconies, and have it recharge our bore wells, or channel it to absorption pits so the water table right below our building is replenished! And if your builder has made the provisions, you could directly reuse the appropriately filtered rainwater for the washing machine & other cleaning needs! Assuming the average rainfall in your city remains same, you will not need to call another water tanker ever – statistics says that for a city like Bangalore, the annual rainfall on the catchment area (roof and balconies) of a typical house is enough to provide all the water needed by a typical household! This holds good for a typical apartment complex as well.

Implementing rainwater harvesting does require concerted effort from the Apartment Owners’ Association, but professional help is available in plenty! Here is your complete How-To guide from BWSSB (Bangalore Water Supply and Sewage Board).

Resources to ‘just do it’:

Biome Solutions
water@biome-solutions.com ; 91-80-41672790

Rainwater Concepts
sales@rainwaterconcepts.co.in; 91-080-65460796

Jal Swaraj!

2. Car Pooling

If you live in a large apartment complex as well as work in the commercial center of the city (e.g., an IT Park), chances are that there are at least 10 cars commuting each day from your apartment gate to your office gate. The right setup for a carpooling arrangement!
And guess what, you also face the same facility inefficiencies – if there is no water in your tap, then it’s the same for your neighbour too – you both will be late !! Where do you get better carpool partners?!

If all 10 commuters carpool, 10 cars are reduced to 2 cars! The savings: money, petrol, wear & tear of each car, and the environment! And oh the variety of topics for discussion – right from Guptaji’s loud parties to the new playschool coming up next door!

Resources to ‘just do it’:

ApartmentAdda (use the Forum or the Noticeboard to find your carpooling partner)
CommuteEasy (when you are looking for a dedicated carpooling solution)

Resources to learn more:
Car Pool

3. Waste Segregation

Every morning when we hand out a single garbage bag containing all our household garbage together, we just created more waste.

How?

The typical household garbage bag mainly contains wet waste from kitchen, paper, plastic, and occasional e-waste (used batteries etc.). When these ride the garbage truck together, they end up in a landfill. Some of the dry waste like plastic bottles get picked up by unauthorized reusers and the rest just lies there – for eternity to do its job of long decomposition.

The truth is that other than the wet waste, almost everything else in our garbage bag should go to human hands – either to be re-used by the needy, or decomposed safely (e.g., the batteries), or to be recycled the right way (e.g., paper and plastic). If we could just separate our waste right at our home, and hand out our garbage in two bags – one with the wet waste, and the other with dry – the dry waste can get recycled.

BENEFITS: Recycling the paper waste will cause less trees to be felled to manufacture fresh paper – recycling a tonne of waste paper saves 17 trees and 26460 litres of water. Recycling of plastic consumes 70% less energy than manufacturing them. Proper disposal of e-waste will prevent underground water from being contaminated with hazardous chemicals such as lead, mercury and cadmium. Reduction of waste dumped in landfills, will free up land used as landfills for more productive use.

You can choose to go the whole way – install 3 separate garbage bins: 1) for wet waste, 2) paper+plastic+metal+clothes and 3) e-waste.

Or, you can just start with one level of separation! Below are the commendable examples:

Prestige Greenwood provides separate bin for the e-waste from each flat. This e-waste is taken away by a qualified re-cycler.

Brigade Millenium in Bangalore provides a separate bin for all dry waste. Read about their inspiring initiative on the Citizen Matters site.

Resources to ‘just do it’:

E-Parisaraa
91-80-2836 0902/ 3290 6684

www.dailydump.org
91 99164 26661/ 91 80 41152288

Resources to learn more:

E-waste guide
ITC Paperboards WoW (this initiative now covers Bangalore)

4. Lake Development

Have you paid a fortune to buy a ‘lake facing’ apartment, only to helplessly watch the lake deteriorate by the day? The builder promised to develop the lake but.. You figure it is under the Lake Development Authority or the Forest Department, who are not sure if it is going to be under BBMP soon.

Then there are problems of Sewage Overflow from STPs of the neighbourhood that have only the lake to flow into. The BWSSB sewage lines are not yet extended to your neighbourhood.

Well.. here you are – part of an apartment community with collective resources and determination. Can nothing be done to prevent the lakes from being filled – either by construction or by weeds & pollutants?

We don’t have answer to this yet. Do you?

Resources to ‘just do it’:

ApartmentAdda.com (Use the  forum, notices to stir up the crowd!)
Save Chinnapannahalli Lake

Resources to learn more:

Lakes in Bangalore

Chinnapanahalli lake covered with weed

5. Plant Trees!

Finally, here is playing in the offense rather than the defense! If you cannot do any of 1 through 4, you sure can roll up your sleeves, dig up the empty patch right next to your building and plant a sapling! And if your neighbours join in, you can plant a neat little botanical garden around your building!

40 yrs down the lane your next generation will not only inherit that apartment but also the air loaded with oxygen and mornings hailed by chirpings of birds! Talk about raising your property value! In Bangalore there are NGOs that help you with planting trees – you can sponsor the saplings or just show a patch of property where saplings can be planted and will be nurtured by the property owner. You can also just volunteer for planting.

Resources to ‘just do it’:

TreesforFree

Resources to learn more:

Care for your tree

We at ApartmentAdda.com wish you all the very green! Do write back to us about which environment friendly cause your apartment community is championing!