People's power saves a park

People's power saves a park

BBMP stops work on building a bangaloreone centre in high street park

Sunitha Rao R. Bangalore.



Protagonists out to save Lalbagh can take a leaf out of the successful struggle waged by residents of Milton Road in Sarvajnanagar to save the High Street Park in their locality.
Faced with the might of people's power, the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has recently stopped the construction of a proposed BangaloreOne centre inside the park.
The residents of the area were waging a relentless battle against the BBMP decision to build the BangaloreOne centre inside the park.
They mounted a signature campaign and lobbied hard with the BBMP to get the civic body abort its plans.
As the civic body refused to budge, they filed a Public Interest Litigation in the High Court of Karnataka and obtained a stay order on the BBMP construction work inside the park.
Spread over an area of 12,000 square feet, the High Street Park is used by more than 600-700 people everyday.
The users come from areas like Cooke Town, Hutchinson Road, Jaibharat Nagar, and Lloyd's Road.
Mary Chitra Matthew, a resident, said the BBMP never took the residents into confidence when taking up developmental activities inside the park.
In January last, the BBMP began work on the centre in the park on the High Street Road entrance side.
"Residents staged protest marches and met BBMP officials. The work was stopped forthwith," a resident of Prestige Milton Garden apartments recalled.
But in March, the BBMP workers were back in the park redoing the lawn and taking up other development work. The residents were under the impression that the BBMP was up to some routine maintenance work.
But the BBMPworkers soon started digging up the park and even laid the foundation. The aghast residents were on the warpath again.
"We approached the BBMP officials about the inconvenience the BangaloreOne centre would cause to regular park users. But they did not listen to our pleas and the construction work continued. We got together and filed a PIL petition in High Court of Karnataka. The petition was signed by 200 residents of the area," said the resident of Prestige Milton Garden apartments.
The PIL was filed on behalf of the Prestige Milton Garden apartment residents' association.
On April 6, a division bench comprising Chief Justice PD Dinakaran and Justice VG Sabahit issued a stay order directing the BBMP to stop forthwith the construction of any help centre inside the park.
According to the residents, Sarvajnanagar MLA KJ George too came out in support of their campaign.
George said, "Some residents wanted a helpline in their area. But when the construction began for the BangaloreOne centre, there were many others who were against this. If the construction causes disturbance to residents, then there is no point in building anything."
According to the residents who filed the PIL, the BBMP took a unilateral and arbitrary decision to build the help centre inside the park.
"The BBMP said that some residents had asked that the help centre be built here. But the civic body should have consulted other residents, at least those who stay immediately next to the park. Nothing of this kind was done," another angry resident said.
"Once any commercial activity starts inside the park, we have no control over the inflow of people. This will gradually affect the ambience of the park and eventually ruin it," said another resident of Prestige Milton Garden apartments.
"BangaloreOne is really helpful, but that can be built at any other convenient place and not inside the park. The BBMP too did not help by not being open on the issue," said Shiv Rao, a resident of the area.
When DNA spoke to BBMP officials, Nanjaiah, Assistant Executive Engineer of Sarvajnanagar, said, "A set of residents wanted the helpline and we started construction, but when the other residents went to the High Court we stopped the construction work on a temporary basis. At the next hearing in the court, we will produce records to justify why we started the construction and on the plea from locals for a BangaloreOne centre in the locality."