BBMP hasn’t cleared the parking bay

BBMP hasn’t cleared the parking bay

Author: Chetan.R Date: 09 Jun 2008

Police turn a busy public road turn into an auto parking bay serving Garuda Mall. A furious BBMP commissioner S Subramanya says it violates municipal laws

Garuda Mall, already in the dock for violating building norms, is now served by an auto bay that blocks an arterial road.

MiD DAY discovered yesterday that BBMP commissioner Dr Subramanya was completely in the dark about the use of a huge chunk of Commissariat Road as a parking bay.

“I have no knowledge of it. The KMC Act prohibits the use of a main road for any purpose other than transport,” he said.

Shockingly, the BBMP has not approved the use of the busy road for use as a parking bay, but the police have gone ahead and obliged the mall.

“Using roads for parking, transformer installation and garbage dumping is prohibited. We haven’t cleared this parking bay,” Subramanya told MiD DAY.

Permission for any change of use of a road has to be obtained from the BBMP. But the traffic police have installed huge barricades, and turned the road into an enclosure to serve mall customers.

“There was heavy congestion on Magarath Road where autos used to be parked. To avoid it and to help visitors get autos, we made this change,” said Praveen Sood, deputy commissioner of police (traffic).
“We have taken the BBMP into confidence.”

While the police and the BBMP contradict each other, a source in the BBMP said Uday Garudachar, proprietor of Garuda Mall, had used his influence as a BJP member to get undue favours from the police.
“It’s another move to grab land. They have done it earlier. And they are at it again,” he said.

Mall denial

Uday Garudachar said he had only requested the police to provide regulated parking.

“We don’t have any intention of using the road. As creating regulated parking takes time, the police have turned the road in front of the mall into a parking space,” he said.

Civic experts are outraged. “Unless and until it’s for public use, a road can’t be changed into something else. Using a road to help a mall is wrong,” said Capt Raja Rao, chairman, BBMP technical committee on roads.

The parking bay creates a bottleneck at the Garuda junction, and has become a headache for citizens.
“Traffic used to be smooth earlier. But nowadays, because of the autos here, traffic jams are common. Things are worse during peak hours,” said Ravishankar, a citizen who goes to Airport Road every day.

“This auto stand was not required at all. There are two parking spaces around the mall. One is within the mall and the other adjacent to Commissariat Road,” said Rajeev, a citizen who passes the junction regularly.

More errors

A part of the mall violates building norms, and the BBMP had ordered demolition. But the official machinery has not moved to recover the space so far.