The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : A nice place to touch down

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Wednesday, Nov 05, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

A nice place to touch down

Chitra V. Ramani

— Photo: Bhagya Prakash K.

Lung space: One of the roads at ISRO Layout in Bangalore.

Bangalore: This layout could be every Bangalorean’s envy. It has tree-lined streets, five parks, a community library, a community hall and a dedicated medical dispensary. What is more, this multicultural layout is a veritable microcosm of India. Spread across 80 acres of land, this layout was originally called Vikram Nagar after Vikram Sarabhai, the visionary of space science in India. It is now popularly known as ISRO Layout.

The layout was developed during the 1980s by the Space Employees’ Cooperative Housing Society and Bangalore Development Authority. The initiative was spearheaded by M.N. Sathyanarayana, M.G. Chandrashekhar and several senior scientists of the Bangalore-based space establishments.

Multicultural community

ISRO Layout is truly multicultural with people from across the country living together harmoniously. “The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) itself is multi-cultural and has a national character, both of which find true representation in the layout developed by Space Employees Cooperative Housing Society,” said S.N. Bhagyalakshmi, Senior Hindi Officer, ISRO.

Residents of ISRO Layout proudly claim that their layout, which has 900 plots of 60 X 40, 30 X 50 and 30 X 40 dimensions, was developed as a model layout. “Even when it was in the planning stage, enough care had been taken to ensure the layout has all infrastructure facilities,” Ms. Bhagyalakshmi said.

Due to the huge demand for similar layouts among the other employees of the space establishments, the Space Employees Cooperative Housing Society is in the process of developing another ISRO Layout near Yelahanka in Bangalore North. A third layout is also on the anvil.

H.N. Madhusudan, Director, Budget and Economic Analysis, ISRO, who has been living here for more than a decade, said that the planning of the layout was non-commercial. “The environmental planning was done by V.S. Hegde, former head of Karnataka State Remote Sensing Centre, who currently is the Director of Earth Observation Systems in ISRO. He ensured that there would be lot of open spaces while the natural contours of the areas were maintained,” he said.

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