Many civic groups, residents’ welfare associations and urban experts are up in arms against the network of elevated corridors and the speed with which tenders were issued without public consultation.
Those at the forefront of ‘Elevated Corridor Beda’ campaign said they felt “betrayed” by the State leadership over tenders being floated for Phase I of the project without the promised public consultation.
Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy and Deputy Chief Minister Dr. G. Parameshwara had earlier assured them they would seek public opinion over the project before clearing it.
In a postcard campaign “Janara Matu Keli” (Listen to the People), launched by a consortium of civic groups in January 2019, over 6,000 citizens had written to the Chief Minister seeking a public consultation over the project.
When contacted, B.S. Shivakumar, Managing Director, Karnataka Road Development Corporation Ltd (KRDCL) — which is executing the project — said public consultation was not a legal pre-requisite for the project.
“We held widespread stakeholder consultations with concerned departments like BBMP, BMRCL, Traffic Police and others,” he said.
Vijay Kumar, secretary, State Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA) that accorded the project Environment Clearance (EC) on Saturday, said: “This category of projects are exempted from public consultations.”
The government's move to go ahead with the project amidst severe opposition is likely to stir up another campaign along the lines of the #SteelFlyoverBeda, which forced the State government to scrap a proposed steel flyover meant to ease the commute to Kempegowda International Airport two years ago.
“Civic groups will meet soon to chalk out our strategies for the campaign. We appeal to the good offices of the State leadership and former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, who is expected to contest the upcoming Lok Sabha polls from the city to rethink on the project,” said Srinivas Alavilli of Citizens for Bengaluru (CfB).
Legal route
The project is expected to encounter legal hurdles as civic groups have now decided to challenge the tender issued for Phase I of the project in court over multiple grounds. Citizen Action Forum (CAF) and Environment Support Group (ESG), two civic organisations told The Hindu that they would seek legal recourse.
Leo Saldanha of ESG argued the EC and tender was “bad in law” and that public consultation was necessary. “We will definitely challenge the tender in High Court. A High Court order of 2011 on ESG's challenge over Metro alignment clearly lays down that as per Section 14 (a) of Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act, 1961 any development needs change of land use for which calling for public objections is mandatory.,” he said.
Another ground civic groups are likely to take is that the decision was not made by the constitutionally mandated Bengaluru Metropolitan Planning Committee. “The project also does not find a mention in the draft Revised Master Plan 2031,” said N.S. Mukunda of CAF, which is already a petitioner before the High Court on RMP 2031 not being spearheaded by BMPC.
