Bengaluru: On Wednesday, a delegation of academics, environmentalists and former civil servants, among others, requested Karnataka Governor Thawar Chand Gehlot to refuse consent for the contentious amendment to a law that proposes deviations within park spaces for infrastructure and other projects.
Tejasvi Surya, the Bharatiya Janata Party Member of Parliament from Bengaluru South, accompanied by eminent personalities, submitted a memorandum detailing what he called “concerns” regarding the amendments.
“The state government over the last week has passed an amendment to the Karnataka Parks Preservation Act, permitting diversion of 5 percent land for so-called infrastructure projects,” Surya told reporters in Bengaluru Wednesday.
“This is specifically done to facilitate the Tunnel Road project in Bengaluru and aims to permanently acquire close to six acres of land in Lalbagh,” he added.
The proposed bill that the delegation and the Opposition are referring to is the Karnataka Government Parks (Preservation) Act, 1975 (Karnataka Act 23 of 1975), which the D K Shivakumar-led Congress government passed on the last day of the Monsoon Session, which ended Monday.
The delegation included noted environmentalist Yellappa Reddy, Professor Ashish Verma of the Indian Institute of Science, former chief secretary of Karnataka A. Ravindra, and representatives of walkers associations of Lalbagh, Sankey Tank, and others.
Surya has been drumming up support to oppose the contentious Rs 40,000 crore Tunnel Road project, which the chief minister has been pushing despite growing opposition.
It has been referred to as a “real estate” project by those opposing it, including alleging that the project would give thousands of crores in “kickbacks”.
“Yellappa Reddy sir has said, please take the sum he (Shivakumar) expects to receive as kickbacks from this project, and the people of Karnataka and Bengaluru are ready to crowdfund the kickback. Please take this money, but please spare us our Lalbagh, Cubbon Park, and green spaces in the city,” Surya said.
Bengaluru has seen a rapid erosion of its green cover due to unplanned and unregulated growth, as well as short-sighted big-ticket infrastructure projects that threaten some of the last remaining lung spaces in India’s IT capital.
Green spaces like Cubbon Park and Lalbagh are some of the main reasons Bengaluru earned its moniker of the Garden City of India.
According to a report by T. V. Ramachandra of the Centre for Ecological Sciences at IISc, the city’s green cover has fallen from 68 percent in the 1970s to just around 3-4 percent currently.
The study also said that paved surfaces have increased from around 8 percent five decades ago to 86 percent now.
‘Peninsular Gneiss’
At the centre of the opposition to the Bill and the Tunnel Road project sits Lalbagh—a lush, 240-acre oasis of lung space in the southern part of the city.
The Tunnel Road project seeks to permanently take over around six acres of land from Lalbagh, fuelling concerns among residents who have fiercely resisted any government attempts to acquire the park land.
The park has over 1,800 species of rare plants and flowers, along with lush green cover from trees, some of which are centuries old.
The garden was developed by Tipu Sultan, the former ruler of Mysore, after his father, Hyder Ali, commissioned it in 1760. Tipu Sultan sourced plants from various countries, adding to the rich appeal.
The Tunnel Road project also involves one of the oldest known rock formations.
The Peninsular Gneiss, or the Lalbagh Rock as it is popularly called, is a wide stretch of sedimentary rocks over 3 billion years old. In 1975, the Geological Survey of India declared the Lalbagh rock a National Geological Monument.
It is also the location for one of four famous watchtowers built by the city’s founder, Kempe Gowda, to mark the boundary of Bengaluru.
Although Shivakumar has tried to allay fears that the project will not harm the park or the rock, the Bill itself is seen as the government’s attempt to circumvent stiff opposition to the project.
What does the Bill say?
The ‘statement of object and reasons’ for the Bill provides “to alienate park land by way of sale, lease, gift, exchange, mortgage, or otherwise, up to an absolute limit of 5 percent of the total area”.
This applies in favour of government departments, statutory authorities, government companies, or local authorities for public utility projects.
The Bill also allegedly threatens other open spaces in the city.
Surya said a protest march is being organised Sunday morning, led by Reddy. The Bengaluru South MP said the demands were to drop the “unscientific and unconstitutional project”.
The project itself has been engulfed in controversies ever since it was proposed two years ago by Shivakumar, who was then the Bengaluru in-charge minister.
The main argument against the project is that it promotes dependency on private cars for commuting while mass transit options like the Metro and suburban rail have been long-delayed or barely even started.
Shivakumar has been trying to mobilise support for the Tunnel Road project. The first phase (‘North–South Underground Vehicular Tunnel Project’) is a proposed twin-tube underground tunnel—three lanes in each tube—connecting Hebbal and Silk Board Junction, two localities that contribute most to Bengaluru’s infamous traffic snarls.
Billionaire businessman Gautam Adani is the lowest bidder for the project despite being higher than the state’s estimated costs, adding to the challenges.
Each kilometre of the road is estimated to cost around Rs 1,200 crore, and when complete, it will force cars to cough up Rs 600 for a full trip. Even the Detailed Project Report (DPR), prepared at a cost of Rs 9.5 crore, was entrusted to a consultant who was previously blacklisted. Parts of the DPR were directly copied from another report, adding to questions over the project.
The project has a 40 percent Viability Gap Funding under which the state government can potentially bear an additional Rs 7,200 crore to cover the gap between revenue and expenditure.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
Also read: Tunnel vision or silver bullet? Why Bengaluru’s Rs 17,700 cr underground road project is facing oppn
Congress should be developing Tier-2 cities of Karnataka, instead of overloading Bengaluru to breaking point.
They are doing this evil project, because Congress leaders have real estate investment in Bengaluru, whose value they want to inflate.
Even if the city becomes living hell, they only want to increase their wealth.
I mean I don’t care if you cut a few trees but then the project should be worth it. I am not a fan of the twin tunnel project. You need to build more public transport to curb the traffic problem. You need to make footpaths accessible to reduce traffic.
Don’t waste your damn money and the tree on useless projects.