The decision of the then State government to shelve the proposed steel flyover to Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) following an uproar was counted as one of the biggest victories of a citizens’ movement. However, the proposal appears to be getting a new lease of life this year.
Deputy Chief Minister and Bengaluru Development Minister G. Parameshwara, on Tuesday, announced that the government is considering reviving the project on ‘popular demand’.
The announcement comes in the backdrop of opposition to yet another project — the 102-km-long network of elevated corridors.
“There is a serious problem of traffic congestion on the international airport road. Asteel flyover between Chalukya Circle and Esteem Mall is the need of the hour. There is a demand from the public to revive the project and ease traffic on the corridor. If a steel bridge is built, commuters can travel to KIA in 20 minutes. The previous Congress government had dropped the project due to political opposition. But we have decided to revive the project on popular demand,” Mr. Parameshwara told mediapersons.
The announcement has taken civic activists who led the #SteelFlyoverBeda campaign, which eventually saw the government scrapping the ₹2,000 crore project in March 2017, by surprise.
Srinivas Alavilli of Citizens for Bengaluru (CfB), an offshoot of the #SteelFlyoverBeda campaign, which is now leading a campaign against elevated corridors, found the Deputy CM citing ‘popular demand’ as ‘strange’ because the government had earlier scrapped the project owing to public opposition.
CfB had taken up campaigns for public transport alternatives to solve congestion in the city. They are #ChukkuBukkuBeku demanding a suburban train network and #BusBhagyaBeku, demanding augmenting of the BMTC bus fleet.
“But in the last two years, the government has not bought a single bus and is going at a snail’s pace on the suburban train network. They have frustrated citizens by not implementing public transport alternatives, and have again proposed flyovers for private transport as a solution – elevated corridors and steel flyover,” he said.
CfB is in talks with several other citizens’ groups and will put up a united front against any mega infrastructure for private transport, he said.
In 2016, the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) had claimed that 299 people had responded to public consultations over the project and most of them had supported it. However, a civic campaign mobilised nearly 42,000 people to vote against the project in a mock referendum.
Urban expert Ashwin Mahesh said that the steel flyover had failed the test of both public opinion and expert opinion in 2016 and was deservedly scrapped. “The flyover will not solve the congestion on the international airport road and will add no value,” he said.
Elevated corridors, steel flyover to be part of RMP
In an attempt to address criticism that elevated corridors and the steel flyover were not part of the Draft Revised Master Plan – 2031, both projects are set to be included in the new draft RMP-2031, which is expected to be put out for public consultation soon.
“Activists always cry foul that these large infrastructure projects are implemented out of the blue with scant regard for the RMP. But we will include these projects in the RMP this time,” an Urban Development Department official said.
But this move too has drawn criticism. “Preparing an RMP is an organic process where you first diagnose a problem, evaluate all possible solutions and then hit on the most optimal solution. Merely including infrastructure projects that have not evolved out of a large mobility study makes no sense,” said a civic activist.
“The State Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA) is conducting an Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) for the elevated corridor project. The report is expected to be out in two months,” said M. Ganesh, MD, Karnataka Road Development Corporation Ltd. (KRDCL). The EIA would be put out for public consultation.
BJP cautions government
Leader of opposition in the legislative assembly B.S. Yeddyurappa cautioned against the government steamrolling its way through the project. “Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy opposed the project when he was in the opposition. Now the deputy chief minister has suddenly revived the project. We are not opposed to development, but the project needs to be discussed threadbare. There have been allegations of corruption and kickbacks,” he said.
Water Resources Minister D.K. Shivakumar shot back saying the government cannot be ‘blackmailed’ over development by the opposition and they would implement the project in the interest of the people. “During the previous government, Siddaramaiah respected their views and dropped the project. If I were to be in his place, I wouldn’t have done so. The opposition sees red in every development project, but that can’t deter us. The allegations of corruption are being made using a diary allegedly found during an IT raid on MLC Govindaraj. The diary is fake and was planted,” he said. “If we do more work, we will have more enemies who will find faults. But we need to do our duty to the people,” he said.
