Earmark peripheral areas for green spaces: Moily

Earmark peripheral areas for green spaces: Moily
Deccan Herald

A cross section of political leaders led by former chief minister Veerappa Moily, demanded that the government withdraw the draft Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) for Bangalore and seek to remedy the threat to the City’s green cover.

Notable others in the brigade included former minister B Somashekar of the JD(U), MLC Ramachandre Gowda (BJP) and environmentalist Yellappa Reddy.

A running thought in their call was that the draft CDP has the stamp of pressure from the ‘land and builders’ mafia’.

The occasion was a seminar organised by the ‘Arkavathi - Kumudvathi Punaschetana Samithi’ in the wake of public comments being elicited on the draft CDP.

Mr Moily said Bangalore needed measures to check its growth, topmost being laws to protect parks and playgrounds.

Noting that any growing city’s peripheral areas tend to be cess pools of criminal activities, Mr Moily said that earmarking them as green space could be an option.

The CDP should also address issues like migration by channelling it to safe and productive purposes, he said.

Mr B Somashekar noted that the draft plan does not mention the survey numbers of the places where the green belt is encroached.

The builders, real estaters and contractors who have violated the land use laws will eventually use this as a loophole to regularise their encroachments, he noted and demanded that the government bring out a white paper on the issue. Referring to resorts that have cropped up around the city, Mr Ramachandre Gowda said the owners who are mostly from outside, foresaw the value of the land and have made hay.

Noting that environmental concerns have taken a back seat in the draft plan, Dr Yellappa Reddy observed that the live water bodies in areas where the city is billed to expand have been put at risk.