Duplication efforts by BDA should stop

Duplication efforts by BDA should stop
New Indian Express

BANGALORE: Successive State Governments should take the project proposals forward in the same spirit that was once conceived and they should have the magnanimity to continue the policies, programmes and projects of its previous Governments.

Here is a classic example where the BDA, without any valid need, through its Masterplan, seems to ridicule itself by proposing a stretch of its Peripheral Road (45 km) at a very close ordinate and parallel to a toll peripheral road, which is already under construction under BOOT system, from Tumkur Road junction to Hosur Road junction (45 km).

One wonders why BDA wants to waste the public money in building a duplicate stretch of Outer Peripheral Road when the same stretch of Peripheral Road is being developed by a private firm.

Was it to defeat the basic objective of public private partnership (PPP) or to send a signal to all the PPP participants, that the development authority can undo and do what it feels? Unfortunately, for the reasons best known to the consultants, the Masterplan has endorsed this technical blunder.

The ‘‘No Development Zone’’ area along the toll road could be used by BDA for building Peripheral Service Road for the non-toll users. Because of two roads, the green belt is a broken entity. The duplication of efforts by BDA should stop and the BDA should concentrate on detailing out the proposed 150 projects (approx) envisaged in the Masterplan.

The Masterplan should have thought of visionary ways of addressing housing needs in Bangalore. Why not the Government initiate the creation of ‘‘Rental Housing Programme’’ of various rental ranges. This will facilitate accommodation of the migrants.

As far as the slums are concerned, various development agencies have different policies, political parties have vested interests and agendas, but at the end, legally, slums are termed ‘Unauthorised Developments’.

There are 738 slums, 110 unauthorised layouts and many urban villages within the BDA limits. A proper solution should be evolved to ensure that slums do not crop up in any metropolis, but even a poor family should be supported with a shelter.

Institutional issues like framework for simplification of sanction/approval of buildings, layouts are not addressed in the Masterplan. ‘‘Single Window Approval’’ is not a solution, as everyone knows by now that there are many windows within this single window.

The issue of Green Belt area proposed in the Masterplan has become the centre of discussion by all intellectuals except the people who own a piece of land in the Green Belt.

The BDA cannot expect the landowners in this zone to engage their land to agriculture/green activities when there is enormous pressure of development (intensity and cost-wise) on its adjacent lands within the conurbation limits.

Either the BDA/KIADB should acquire the land at the prevailing market rate and develop the same for the proposed ‘‘green uses’’ or this zone will be another example of unauthorised urban sprawl.