‘Power’ house halting Metro in its tracks

‘Power’ house halting Metro in its tracks


Hemachandra Sagar’s property near the National College Flyover.
Monica JhaFirst Published : 27 Apr 2009 04:08:00 AM IST
BANGALORE: Between the National College Circle and Vasavi Vidya Niketan close to the National College flyover, stands a quiet old building.
There are reasons to believe that this building with high compound walls and white iron gates, could be one of the epicentres of the wide-scale protests against the Metro Rail work.
A black granite slab, with the name ‘Chandra Nursing Home’ carved on it sits on the right side of the gate and on the left a board reads Dayabhavan The property, with a huge old house, a newer fancy three-storeyed building, several trees- mango, jackfruit and coconut- belongs to the family of D Hemachandra Sagar, the BJP MLA from Chikpet constituency.
This property falls in the way of the Metro Rail alignment between KR Road and RV Road terminal via Lalbagh and has been notified for acquisition. The powerful family, however, has not vacated the property despite the fact that the deadline set by the Karnataka Industrial Area development Board (KIADB) to hand over the possession of the property expired over six months ago.
Hemachandra Sagar also was one of the first elected representatives to support the protests related to the Metro work in this reach. November last year, when some NGOs (including Hasiru Usiru and its supporters) protested against the Metro work through Lalbagh and RV Road, the MLA joined them.
Sagar also demanded Metro rail to go underground across the city.
Interestingly, in his constituency Chikpet, the Metro rail has been planned to go underground.
The Dr H Narasimaiah flyover, popularly known as the National College flyover, has occupied the first natural right of way for the metro alignment in the area. Therefore, the Metro rail cuts through the private properties on the right (from Vasavi Vidya Niketan to National College) to get onto KR Road. The MLA’s property is one amongst these properties that the metro alignment cuts through and have been notified.
While the ‘power’ house is still to be vacated, most of the neighbouring properties have already been acquired for Metro work.
A branch of Vijaya Bank, right next to the MLA’s property, has also vacated its premises for Metro.