STRR: Road alignment not fair, say property owners

STRR: Road alignment not fair, say property owners
Deccan Herald

Property owners in the Sarjapur Road neighbourhood rose in protest against Bangalore Metropolitan Region Development Authority (BMRDA)'s preliminary survey on a link road.


This is one high-speed drive, that could come with a dear price. As Bangalore Metropolitan Region Development Authority (BMRDA) gets set to follow up on its preliminary survey on a link road connecting its proposed Satellite Town Ring Road (STRR) to Bangalore, property owners in the Sarjapur Road neighbourhood are rising in protest. Their contention: the road alignment is not fair on those who own properties on one side of the road.

BMRDA officials had last week started the survey on the proposed 200-feet Radial Road 3 (RR3), to be laid by widening the existing five-km stretch, that measures close to 110 feet (36 feet black top, flanked by untarred stretches on both sides) and runs between STRR and the proposed Peripheral Ring Road (PRR).

Property owners — many of them farmers and marginal landowners — in Dommasandra, Thigalara Chowdenahalli and Chambenahalli villages allege that BMRDA, instead of having the centre of the tarred stretch as the new road’s central point, has earmarked a point around 60 feet on the left side of the road (in the Bangalore-Sarjapur direction) as the new central point.

This, in effect, means that owners of properties on the left side of the road stand to lose up to 100 feet of land.

According to M Prasanna, an affected land-owner, PWD engineers who were in charge of the road before BMRDA took over had advised land-owners to build structures beyond 75 feet from the central point of the existing road, because in the long-term plan, the road was expected to be widened to 150 feet.

“Property owners on both sides of RR3 have followed the advice, but this is the price we have to pay. We are not objecting to the road, as long as BMRDA sticks to the 75-75 feet alignment on both sides of the new road,” says Prasanna, who is likely to lose about 100 feet of his sapota plantation to the road.

Around 70 business units, 50 houses and three borewells are expected to come under RR3’s land acquisition ambit. This, when stretches on the right side of the road have been left largely untouched. The affected farmers and property owners have already briefed the BMRDA officials on their grievances.



Marginal farmers hit

Residents and land-owners also allege that last week’s survey was initiated without intimation or documents supporting the exercise.

“We don’t own large stretches of land. All we have are some guntas or a maximum of one or two acres, that we can’t afford to lose to the road,” says Venkataswamy, one of the land-owners.

While most of the land-owners maintain that their issue is with the alignment and not the road, some of them also contend that only minor enhancements are required for the existing road.

“According to BMRDA, the alignment has been changed to straighten a curve on the existing road, near Muthanallur Cross Road. But there are hardly any major curves on the road,” says Anand Reddy, another land-owner from the locality.



OFFICIALLY SPEAKING

“While BMRDA can understand the situation of the affected property owners, they also have to understand that there can’t be a fixed pattern of construction when it comes to a 180 kmph road. The alignment can drift to the left, right or even over the existing road. However, we will forward the property owners’ grievances to the PWD for scrutiny.”

— Sudhir Krishna, Metropolitan Commissioner