Watch the fine print in the new CDP

Time to tighten the belt
The new Comprehensive Development Plan for Bangalore is ready for public debate. And there had better be one before it's too late
The Hindu


THE TIME has come for all those who care to stand up and claim their own. Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) is set to notify the new Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) for the city. The new CDP for 2005-2015, which has been lying with the Government, has apparently been reviewed by the Urban Development Department and the powers-that-be and will be returned to BDA for notification.

All of us stick-in-the-mud Bangaloreans who want the city to be just like it was — lazy, laidback and lotus-eating — should look out for changes in land use, suggests eco-expert Vinay Baindur. Apart from the regular pushing back of the green belt by five to 10 kilometres that every new CDP will seek, Vinay suggests that we should actively look for messages in the small print too.

Keep your eyes peeled

First, the essentials: the new CDP draft will be put up for public perusal at the offices and branches of the BDA. The notification could happen anytime between now as you read it and the next week to 10 days. So, if you really care, look for it and read it, demand the map and file your comments. Your next chance will come only in 2015, by law, and if you need that much time to learn your lessons, so be it.

But if you think you have already had enough and, as the city slogan once went "enough is enough," listen to Vinay and his colleagues. The CDP itself, as you could imagine, is not exactly sacrosanct. There are always wilful violators of the land use clauses and an indulgent political class that seeks to "regularise" the violations.

According to those who relentlessly keep vigil, there is a new Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) proposal that seeks to regularise all violations up to December 2003 that has been sent back by the Governor for reconsideration. If you want to figure out what BMP's response to that will be, please look into the BMP budget proposals for the year. Under the revenue streams the budget proposes a substantial amount, about Rs. 150 crore apparently, from regularisations. So the proposal still has active life.

The political class keeps the hopes of all violators alive with benevolent regularisation. The earlier Janata Dal Government had proposed regularisation even in the BDA areas of the city, but the proposal was repealed by the S.M. Krishna Government. The possibilities for violation, even opportunities, are created because of the haziness in land use classification, says Vinay.

"People should look out for changes of land use with civic amenities, especially parks and playgrounds," he says. "They should demand that in the zoning categories, the use of land is more specific.

For instance, a burial ground cannot be included under Parks and Open Spaces." It is likely that the zoning categories will go up from 36 in the 1995 CDP to about 60 in the new one.

The vagueness in classification is a major area of concern, he feels. Citizens should check to see if water bodies are considered as a category in themselves. At present, there are six categories: parks and open spaces; public and semi-public spaces, including educations institutions, halls, theatres, etc.; residential; commercial; industrial and unclassified, a category that includes everything else, defence establishments to the city airport. Water bodies come under this last category. "So 900 acres of Bellandur Lake, for instance, should not get classified as a park."

Demand details

So, to get a specific programme going for preservation and restoration of water bodies, demand and get a separate category. To get an opportunity to make BDA officials listen to you and note down your suggestions and objections, ensure that your area associations organises a public debate on the new CDP. Vinay suggests that we demand that every ward office of the BMP has a draft of the new CDP with maps and that ward-level meetings are organised for the citizens to understand the proposals, their implications, and offer suggestions.

The problem with the CDP, like the proposed metro and other mega projects, is that they are designed and implemented without wider consensus.

If colleges and schools ran a quiz programme on these proposals, they would encounter two kinds of problems: they couldn't get anyone to frame the questions and they are not likely to get the answers. If they did get the odd answer, they wouldn't know if that was right or wrong. Here is one quiz question: what is going to happen to the Indiranagar-Airport Road flyover? Does anybody know?

Send your feedback to prakash@cfdbangalore.ac.in

PRAKASH BELWADI