Ahead of a public consultation promised by Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, the proposed elevated corridor is back in the news with Karnataka Road Development Corporation Ltd. (KRDCL) making a fresh pitch for the project.
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On Friday, B.S. Shivakumar, KRDCL managing director, told The Hindu that the Chief Minister had not promised a “public consultation” but had only assured citizens’ representatives whom he met in March that he would “take their opinion before finalising the project”.
The Congress–JD(S) coalition government’s ambitious 102-km elevated corridor project has been hit by a host of hurdles even before it can take off.
Several citizens’ groups, including those who had led a protest against the now-shelved steel flyover project, started the #ElevatedCorridorTenderRadduMadi movement after the KRDCL floated a tender on March 4 for the first phase of the North–South corridor from Baptist Hospital on Ballari Road to Silk Board junction (22.12 km).
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Meeting with CM
Following this, citizens’ representatives met Mr. Kumaraswamy, who assured them of public consultation. He later tweeted: “Spoke to representatives of various organisations and citizen groups opposing the proposed elevated corridor project. I will have a detailed discussion on the subject soon after the general elections.”
In April, the High Court of Karnataka stayed the process of finalising the tender, and said if the tender is finalised, no work shall be undertaken on the elevated corridor project till June 3. The Division Bench passed the interim order on an application filed by the Namma Bengaluru Foundation and the Citizens Action Forum in 2014, questioning the process of finalising the Revised Master Plan-2035 for the city without the approval of Bangalore Metropolitan Planning Committee.
The KRDCL MD, however, said “ground work” was being undertaken for the elevated corridor until the matter is settled in court.
Citizens’ activists have been taken by surprise with the timing of the KRDCL pitch. “What we need is a public consultation as promised by the Chief Minister in response to the massive public opposition on March 16, not yet another press release commenting on the situation. We request the KRDCL authorities to peruse the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act and take notice of the recent High Court ruling and work towards holding public consultations as early as possible. If government agencies keep pushing this project contradicting the Chief Minister himself, we will have no choice but to make our collective voice heard again,” said Srinivas Alavilli from Citizens for Bengaluru.
‘Varthur to Lalbagh in 20 minutes’
The KRDCL in a press release issued on Friday mentioned that the elevated corridor project would be implemented in four phases, and that it would “work in tandem with the existing infrastructure to alleviate commute time related problems.”
Pitching the project as one that will make travelling from K.R. Puram to Yeshwantpur in 30 minutes and Varthur Kodi to Lalbagh in 20 minutes a reality, the KRDCL said, “Hebbal to Silk Board takes the average person 100 minutes, and 15 km from Hebbal to Lalbagh takes 60 minutes. The proposed North–South, East–West, and centrally based elevated corridors will ease out traffic congestion all over the city ... the 87.87 km of multi-lane roads will ensure that it will take no longer than 45 minutes to reach any part of the city. Once the first phase is completed, the travel time from Hebbal to Silk Board junction will be reduced from 100 minutes to 35 minutes.”
The elevated roads will have dedicated bus lane and bus stops at 3-km intervals.
‘Flawed logic’
Countering these claims, Srinivas Alavilli from Citizens for Bengaluru, said the entire logic is flawed. “If flyovers reduce travel time, why are we stuck in traffic jams everywhere after building around 50 of them? By the time the elevated corridor is built, the number of vehicles would have exploded, given the current rate of growth,” he said, while making a case for mass transit systems.