Traffic versus trees: Bangalore in a fix

Traffic versus trees: Bangalore in a fix
ANIL BUDUR LULLA
Green block

Bangalore, Aug. 10: An ambitious plan to widen city roads and decongest traffic by involving landlosers has run into a hurdle with Karnataka High Court ordering that all projects that are a potential threat to the environment would have to be vetted by a committee of experts.

The court’s intervention followed a public interest litigation alleging that the massive exercise, which entails the cutting of 35,000-40,000 trees along 300km of roads, would cause irreparable damage to Bangalore’s climate. Environmentalists say the temperature in areas where the trees would be cut could go up by at least 3°C.

“The committee will look into the complaints and based on its order work can be executed,” said a bench of Justices R. Malimath and Gopala Gowda in a recent ruling. The court, however, added that the committee should consider public interest and sentiments while examining the projects.

“The committee is a permanent one and any infrastructure project being taken up by either the city civic body or Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation will be referred to it. This is a precedent for the entire country. Other cities, too, can take a leaf out of this judgment as many Indian cities are planning fast-track infrastructure projects,” said Leo Saldanha of Environment Support Group, which, along with other NGOs, had filed the PIL.

The panel will be headed by the retired principal chief conservator of forests, A.N. Yellappa Reddy, and will have five members on the board.

The judicial intervention is a big blow to the new BJP government as it had captured 17 of Bangalore’s 28 Assembly seats on the promise of launching infrastructure initiatives to improve the condition of a city bursting at its seams.

Among the plans was kick-starting the nearly three-year-old initiative of widening roads and transferring development rights to landlosers instead of paying low amounts in compensation. In turn they could either add additional floor area to their existing structures or sell the rights to builders for doing so.

The Bangalore City Corporation, now called the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike, had planned to widen over 125 important roads where traffic flow was bumper-to-bumper even in non-peak hours.

A master plan was drawn up under which commercial and residential properties were to lose much-coveted frontage by at least 4-4.5 metres once acquisition started.

To make the idea saleable, the corporation held out a carrot in the form of transferable development rights, which meant building owners not interested in additional floors within the same premises could sell the certificates to builders.

Although three years old, the scheme did not quite take off because of suspicion by many landlosers that a law permitting this exchange would never come through. Now, after relevant laws have been passed, the new BJP government was all set to market this idea and widen roads.

But NGOs said that instead of widening roads and damaging the green belt, the need of the hour was integrated junction management