Open spaces in the city have seen a rapid decline since 1972, when the first Outline Development Plan for the city was prepared.
D.S. Raveendran, a senior Indian Forest Service officer in the State conducted a study: ‘Whither Open Spaces: A Politico-Economic analysis of Open Space Provisioning in Bangalore,’ as part of his postgraduate programme in Public Policy and Management at Indian Institute of Management, Bengaluru.
The study, which analyses open spaces in the city based on successive BDA Master Plans, shows the decline of per capita availability of open space from around 8 sq m in 1972 to 2.82 sq m in 2003. The latest data now shows that this has further declined to around 1.9 sq m, today.
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The data also indicates the faulty implementation of successive Master Plans for the city, all of which reserved 15 per cent area for public open spaces. However, the BDA in its latest Revised Master Plan 2015, has also included area of lakes considering it an open space, boosting the open space area to 5.8 per cent. This is still only about one third of the prescribed limit.
Chowdegowda, Town Planning Member, BDA, conceded that there had been laxity in the implementation of the master plan but was quick to add that this was the case in earlier decades and not the situation now. “BDA developed layouts will have the prescribed land earmarked for parks. It is the unplanned layouts and illegal revenue pockets that are adding chaos to the city,” he alleged.
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