With no major violations found either in the use of the parking area or in noise regulations by Mall of Asia, the city police, the management of the mall, and various other government agencies have mutually agreed to implement certain short- and long-term measures to ease traffic congestion around the mall at Byatarayanapura on Ballari Road in the city.
The long- and short-term measures were submitted before the High Court of Karnataka on Friday following three rounds of deliberations, held as suggested by the court earlier, to find solutions for traffic congestion caused due to mall visitor’s vehicles and to reduce noise level.
From today
The short-term measures will be enforced on an experimental basis for 15 days from January 6 to study their results, the court was informed.
Justice M. Nagaprasanna, before whom the petition filed by Sparkle One Mall Developers Pvt. Ltd. (which manages the mall) came up for hearing, directed all the parties to extend the mutually agreed action plan and adjourned further hearing till January 30.
The petitioner-company had questioned the legality of the December 29 prohibitory order imposed by the city Police Commissioner under Section 144 of the Cr.PC and the court on December 31 clarified that the prohibitory order would not result in a ban on opening of mall for business or entry of public.
Noise level
As per the proceedings of the deliberations held, the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board had found that the noise level around the mall measured at 67.61 dB L.Aeq (avg) as against the limit of 65 dB L.Aeq (avg) during the daytime for commercial areas; and the developers have agreed to bring it to the permissible limit.
The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) said the Bangalore Development Authority had approved the development plan for 2,241 residential units, retail commercial spaces, office spaces, and multiplexes on an area of around 65 acres; and the plan for mall is on 13 acres of area within the plan.
The total number of parking slots to be provided is 3,488, including 2,029 (commercial/retail), 271 (multiplex), and 1,118 (office space). The total number of parking slots to be provided for the area for which the partial occupancy was provided is 2,324 (commercial retail space and multiplex). And 5% of the total development project area has to be reserved for surface parking, the BBMP had said in the meeting.
The BBMP, on inspection, found that both the basements were used for parking as per the plan and a total of 2,599 car parking slots, including stack parking, were provided as per the norm. However, 225 surface parking slots shown in the plan were not utilised, and some portion was used for landscaping, the BBMP said.
Parking fee for two-wheelers
The mall developers have agreed to the suggestion of the traffic police to reduce the parking fee for two-wheelers to encourage people to park inside the mall’s parking area instead of parking haphazardly on adjacent roads. Entry and exit of the vehicles, including cabs and autorickshaws would be as per traffic circulation plan as suggested by the traffic police.
