Ecospace BUG Terminal (12°55'20.89"N, 77°41'8.26"E)

The BUG program is maybe the stupidest municipal program in existence, so it makes sense that Bengaluru is where it all began. Bad luck follows this city like a faithful dog, people say. In fact, if dogs could understand metaphor, Bengaluru would be the greatest place on earth to train them. Maybe that’s a meta-metaphor in itself. Anyway, to continue-

The BUG program is the stupidest municipal program in existence. It makes the city’s leaders even more money than they were already making, if such a thing is even possible. It conned the city’s population into thinking it still had a say in matters of policy, social and public welfare; something it realised precisely one week after voting it into existence. And it cannot be got rid of without a level of effort people simply cannot be bothered to make these days. I can see extreme tiredness and apathy in the serpentine queues at each terminal. Wordlessly, I take my place in the line for counter 5F. I figure I will find out what we’re voting on by the time I get to the screen at journey’s end.

In 2053, the government, seeing the large majority of IT and AI companies leaving Bengaluru for literally anywhere else, bought up all the data centers, office space and computing hardware it could. It then launched the Bengaluru Urban Governance program, an audacious plan to fully automate policy, local infrastructure, policing and the entire day-to-day running of the city. Want a road fixed? A park built? An annoying family to stop playing loud music at night? Just walk up to any one of our thousands of BUG terminals and ask, and then all of you can vote on it, and if you, the people, agree, our system will budget for it, and boom! In a matter of weeks, without any long delays or gold chains changing hands, your city will have good done to it. After years of getting kicked to the curb by its own leaders, the beleaguered populous of Bengaluru collectively went “Ah, what the hell; it can’t possibly get worse, can it?” and decided to put the system in place. In many resorts outside town, many men wearing white smiled. The smiles weren't necessarily friendly.

Of course it didn’t work. Budgets remained ludicrous for even the simplest things. The speed of work and policy implementation remained comically slow. The government still retained all the financial power and all the sway over those who got things done as they always had. But now, the common person could not complain. They could not hold anyone accountable. Now, the average citizen’s only recourse was to go to one of the old tech parks here on the Outer Ring Road that had been converted into governance centers and try their best to vote things into existence. Of course, most of the ideas that had genuine positive impact were instantly shot down once public consensus had been reached, and there was not a damn thing anyone could do about it. The voice coming out of the speaker apologising was not human. The screen where one could calculate budgets worked an absolute treat, but there was never enough 'allocated' money to implement anything. These days, everyone continues to try and effect change through this system; a city of people banging their heads against the wall.

My counter is currently voting on building a new pedestrian bridge close to the metro station near here; an admittedly difficult thing to do given it has to go over a flyover. That would mean an elevated walkway about ten stories high. A possible solution would be to build a subway, but the public sentiment is that this is a terrifying idea as it involves digging up the road and some of the pavement; given the city’s history, this is a death sentence for that area as well as that piece of infrastructure. When my turn comes, I take a look at the calculated budget, and my eyes water. This thing is never going to be completed. The person in front of me laughs as they cast their vote in favour of starting the tender process in two weeks; a truly hilarious time frame. I do the same, and when the impassioned artificial voice asks me for comments, I say that it would be a good idea to hire independent engineers to come up with cost-effective design solutions so that the budget might be brought down. As I walk out, the person behind me laughs as well. They heard me.

The lines are ever so long. Never-ending, perhaps. That’s a metaphor too.