Open spaces in the city are fast shrinking, yes. To make matters worse, their distribution across the city is so skewed that a large section of the public has been denied access to open spaces.
An analysis of the data shows that a total of 34 wards have less than one per cent of their area as public open space, of which five wards have no public open space whatsoever. The average open space per ward in BBMP is about 80,889 sq m, about 2.25 per cent of the average ward area in the city.
While the five wards with zero open space are mostly within the old pete area, the rest of the 29 wards with below one per cent open space are on the outer zones of the city, indicating the unplanned unbridled growth in these areas. “In places like Kadugodi and Hongasandra, there are large unplanned layouts where no lands are earmarked for open spaces,” said a BDA official.
Wards with the highest per cent open space access are mostly the old planned layouts of Vasanth Nagar, J.P. Nagar, Jayanagar, Sampangiram Nagar, Aramane Nagar and Hanumanth Nagar.
A cursory look at the data shows that most of the wards with lower open space access are smaller wards with huge population density. “It is the population density that puts pressure on open spaces and leads to its dwindling,” said V. Ravichandar, a member of the BBMP restructuring Committee, who compiled the data.
Parks over playgrounds
The data also shows that whatever open spaces remain most of them are parks and little priority is accorded to playgrounds. While there are 2,377 parks in the city covering an area of 13.4 sq km, there are 390 playgrounds covering an area of just 2.6 sq km.
