BENGALURU: The British-era All Saints Church near Vellara Junction, which has been involved in a tussle with Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL) over temporary acquisition of its property and loss of a huge number of trees for the Metro project, has found support in former MP Margaret Alva. She has recently written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his intervention to protect the heritage structures on the church premises.
“BMRCL is planning to acquire land belonging to the church and dig below it for the underground stretch of the Metro line. This will damage its foundations and lead to the collapse of the church and the buildings housing an old age home, orphanage, etc. I have written to the authorities to stick to their original plans and save this structure. I am now appealing to you to intervene and stop this move in the name of development, which will lead to public protests by the citizens,” she said in the letter.
The Metro authorities had proposed to temporarily acquire 3,797.271 sqmt of land on the church premises for construction of an underground station on the Gottigere-Nagawara line under Phase 2. The church authorities and activists fear that 186 trees on the premises, some as old as 150 years, will face the axe along with the destruction of an old age home and school for the differently abled. They have been protesting against the land acquisition.
Margaret has also written to Mayor Gangambike Mallikarjun regarding the deaths of people in the building collapse at Pulakeshinagar earlier this week and demanded strict action against engineers, officials, contractors and elected representatives.