HC asks for alternative plan to the road across GKVK

HC asks for alternative plan to the road across GKVK



Staff Reporter







BANGALORE: The Karnataka High Court on Wednesday asked the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to inform it on whether it intended to continue construction of the road cutting across the GKVK campus of the University of Agriculture Sciences (UAS) in Bangalore.

The court sought to know from the BBMP whether it had proposed an alternative road to the one cutting across the UAS.

The court was dealing with public interest litigation (PIL) by several former Vice-Chancellors of the UAS challenging the action of the BBMP in constructing a road bisecting the UAS campus.

The UAS too, which had initially agreed to part with land for the road, later rescinded the decision.

On its part, the BBMP indicated that the road was in public interest and that it would provide better connectivity. Opposing the project, the former Vice-Chancellors R. Dwarkinath, G.K. Veeresh, K.V. Devaraj, A.M. Krishnappa, M.N. Shelavantar, N.G. Perur and B. Bisalaiah termed it as illogical and arbitrary.

They said the BBMP had unilaterally decided to link Yeshwanthpur and Yelehanka with Bellary Road by laying a road across the GKVK campus. The road, they said, would lead to great ecological disaster. The UAS, they said, was the third best institution of its kind in the country and was spread over 1,381 acres of land, most of which was classified as forestland.

The UAS, they said, had come up with 28 varieties of paddy, 14 in ragi, seven in sugarcane, six in cowpea, five in soybean, three in sunflower, two each in dolichos, sesamum and sweet potato and 35 different breeds of sheep.

The campus was home to 165 species of birds, 10 species of reptiles, 99 species of butterflies and 13 species of mammals.

In addition, there are hundreds of species of insects. The diversity of flora includes 530 plant species, 46 species of medicinal plants, 24 species having high medicinal value and six rare plants. There was a world class germplasm collection on the premises.

The botanical garden was one of its kind and it had 469 plant species.