‘Greater Bangalore will spell doom’

‘Greater Bangalore will spell doom’
New Indian Express

BANGALORE: The greater centralisation envisaged in the proposal for creation of ‘Greater Bangalore’ may spell disaster for the City, warn environmentalists.

Creation of Greater Bangalore will aggravate problems like depletion of ground water resources, disposal of waste and depletion of green cover.

Greater Bangalore is to be formed by merging the seven CMCs, a TMC and 103 villages around the City. This will increase the area to 696 sq km with a population of 80 lakh. Leo Saldanha of the Environment Support group says, “Nothing will be achieved by making the BMP more powerful. Centralisation will take away sensitivity of local people towards their environment.”

The plan involves serious violation of the Constitution, he says as it goes against the spirit of the 74th Amendment that calls for greater decentralisation of power to urban local bodies. “In the past, faulty planning and unchecked urbanisation had led to flooding of Puttenahalli and if this is comes into being, it will turn the whole City into Puttenahalli,” warns Saldanha.

Director and environmentalist Suresh Heblikar says: “A creative approach is called for to address the problems of Bangalore, not just making a greater agglomeration.” Though the government has announced the formation of four committees to work on the merger, none of them will go into environmental issues.

Chairman, Biodiversity Committee of BMP, Yellappa Reddy says, “I see no serious effort on the part of the government to address the environmental implications. The concerned authorities have not taken the environmental aspect seriously.”

Stating that the City is already in the midst of a serious environmental crisis, he says that the government has concentrated only on administrative restructuring with no effort to address existing problems.

As a result of this, the quality of life is deteriorating and general health of the people has been affected.

As an alternative, Heblikar suggests dividing the City into different zones to administer specific areas with a committee to oversee their functioning.

Leo Saldanha advocates greater involvement of people in the planning process by reviving and strengthening the district planning committees and metropolitan planning committee.