Residents fight for playground

Residents fight for playground
TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Bangalore: There’s no end over the Judges’ Colony issue at HSR Layout, a site originally earmarked as a playground.
While the governor’s office during the President’s Rule directed the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) to intervene, an area MLA has now taken up the residents’ cause, seeking the chief minister’s attention to ensure that the site remains a playground.
A year after work at the colony started with a function, residents are still fighting the battle and say more needs to be done.
Site No. 64 at Haralakunte village (adjacent to HSR Layout Sector 2 water tank) has been earmarked for a sports complex and playground in BDA’s masterplan 2015. The BDA, after the governor’s directive, asked residents to identify alternative land because the order — clearing the site for Judges’ Colony — could not be reversed. Retired brigadier R S Murthy, president of HSR Sector 2 residents’ welfare association, said no action has been taken to allot either the alternative land or reverse the decision to allot land for the colony. “For over 10 years, the place has been used as a playground by students of Cambridge Public School and others.
Despite repeated representations made to the government, they have ignored our pleas,” Murthy said. The residents’ battle got a fillip when Bommanahalli MLA M Satish Reddy at a recent public function requested chief minister B S Yeddyurappa to ensure the land was handed over for the sports complex.
toiblr.reporter@timesgroup.com
Change in plan
Bangalore: BDA commissioner H Siddiah said the search for an alternative site for the playground is on. It’s learnt that an “internal change” was made in the plan, under which land available near Freedom International School, originally
marked as a residential zone, has been turned into a recreational site. But that area marked on site No. 64 was also cleared for constructing Judges’ Colony. “We are finalizing on the alternative site as requested by the residents. But there’s litigation to be sorted out before the decision is made,” Siddiah explained. TNN