BENGALURU: The steel flyover issue has now reached Raj Bhavan. Governor Vajubhai Vala is consulting his legal experts on concerns raised by citizens’ forums opposing the steel flyover.
Architect Naresh Narasimhan and Srinivas Alavilli from India Against Corruption, actor Prakash Belawadi, civic activist and advocate Leo Saldanha, and Priya Chetty-Rajagopal, Executive Director, leadership and board practice, RGF Executive Search India, were some of those who went to present a memorandum against the steel flyover to the governor on Tuesday evening. Last week, it was BJP members who had visited the governor on the same issue.
“The governor told us that he would look into the concerns raised by us and consult legal experts to see what he can do about it,” said Alavilli. Interestingly, the governor was aware of the situation and expressed his concern about the city’s environment in general, he said. Alavilli said, “We informed him (Governor) that the government has declared its intent to go ahead with this project in spite of wide public opprobrium and disgust ... and a human chain protest that saw the participation of 8,000 citizens on October 16.”
The memorandum points out that the proposed project is being undertaken without due consultation process that is to be followed as required by the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act, 1961. “The prescribed mandate of law as per the KTCP Act is that planning and development of urban infrastructure projects... must involve the public at the stage of conceptualisation, approval and costing.
The project also qualifies as an Area Development Project as per the Environment Impact Assessment Notification, 2006, under the Environment Protection Act, 1986. The government has used the technicality of ‘steel’ being the material used, which is apparently not recognised under the Environment Impact Analysis guidelines to take an exemption.
The SEIAA has said that they are now approaching the Ministry of Environment and Forests to ensure this technicality is blocked and the project be subjected to ECA process. We fear this maybe too late...,” Narasimhan said.