Friday, June 10, 2005

CDP revision earns flak from greens

CDP revision earns flak from greens
Deccan Herald

The State government’s decision to revise the Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) of Bangalore has evoked strong criticism from town planners and environmentalists. Here are some excerpts from the opinions expressed by some eminent personalities:

M C Nanaiah, former law minister

The government is planning to revise the CDP only to regularise illegal constructions on the outskirts of the City. Thousands of acres in the Green Belt have already been bought by land mafia and structures have already come up. Now, the government is trying to legalise the same.

In the 90’s I had suggested that the government not allow construction of high-rise buildings within 25 km from the Vidhana Soudha. Even today, I am of the same view. It is strange that the government, instead of creating satellite towns around the City, is shrinking the Green Belt.

If more buildings come up, the City will degrade further because of increase in pollution levels. The government has miserably failed to provide infrastructure facility to the existing population. How can it ensure orderly growth by expanding the City limits?

Smita Bidarkar, Urban planning consultant:

Reducing the Green Belt area was certainly not warranted for. It does not make sense to disturb or stress the already fragile environment. The existing Green Belt area should have been retained. Bangalore can easily grow vertically than horizontally. On the one hand, they are resorting to external borrowing to decongest Bangalore, while on the other, they are allowing more development inside Bangalore.

Bhaskar Rao B, Urban Management Expert

This is not the first time that the government has shifted the Green Belt line. For every plan the green line has been shifted. The government should entirely remove the concept of Green Belt if they change the line whenever they revise the CDP. With this the government has only admitted its failure and seems to be legalising this failure by shifting the Green Belt line. With regard to the CDP, I would like to ask whether the government has implemented the earlier master plans created. In my opinion, the earlier ones have not been implemented because there is no enforcement machinery.

I believe that the current one too is based on outdated data. I assume it does not take the current needs of infrastructure into consideration.

Besides, I think that the CDP does not delineate the financial outlay required to implement the master plan. In all, I would like to see the CDP, review it and see whether it is different or it is just an old plan with new colours added.

Yellappa Reddy, environmentalist and former principal secretary, Forest Dept:

In 1996, when Ms Lakshmi Venkatachalam was the BDA chairperson, she had formed a committee of subject experts to find out ways of protecting the Green Belt. I too was on the panel. We had suggested that the BDA not allow encroachment of forest land, gomala land, open space, water tanks etc. At that time the government land spanned about 12,000 acres, as per statistics provided by the Forest Department.

But now, the government is all for relaxing the norms. Garbage is being dumped around the City, air quality is deteriorating and 50 per cent of the population is suffering from allergy. How can the government allow further growth of the City, in an unscientific manner? All we, the citizens, can do is to cry but who will listen to us?

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