Environmentalists oppose Seshadri Road flyover

Seshadri Road flyover opposed
The Hindu

BANGALORE, JULY 15. Let flyovers come where they are really necessary but certainly not on Seshadri Road, Suresh Heblikar, Chairman of Eco-Watch, the Centre for Promotion of Environment and Research, Bangalore, said here on Thursday.

"The proposed flyover is also going to cut into the city's 100-year-old racecourse which is both a heritage and a precious lung space. The flyover will not ease traffic congestion but will only shift the bottleneck to the next traffic junction at Maharani's College. The same thing will happen at the National College flyover in Basanavagudi. These two flyovers are superfluous and will cause heavy damage to the environment and heritage created so assiduously by erstwhile administrators," Mr. Heblikar said.

The contributions of horticulturists such as John Cameron, G.H. Krumbiegal, H.C. Javaraya and M.H. Marigowda had elevated the status of Bangalore as the most beautiful garden city in the country. They chose certain areas to convert them into tree-lined avenues and Seshadri Road was one of them, he said. "The oxygen generating lung spaces sparkling lakes and carbon sequestering trees are our assets,'' he remarked. Mr. Heblikar expressed concern at the way the once most salubrious climate of Bangalore and its environs was deteriorating. The way the water bodies and trees, which helped create this climate, were disappearing was a cause for alarm. "It is this growth and so called development which have taken a heavy toll of Bangalore's
 
environment. Now, one more flyover is going to strangulate and uproot the stretch of full grown, healthy trees on Seshadri Road, adding to the woes of the citizens suffering from increasing air pollution,'' Mr. Heblikar said.