BENGALURU: Namma Metro’s RV Road-Bommasandra Line has hit another hurdle. Devotees of a nearly 180-year-old temple are now refusing to allow the demolition of their temple in Garvebhavipalya. The temple comes between the proposed Begur Road and Bommanahalli Metro stations.
BMRCL needs the 1,500sqft of land on which the Shri Anjaneya Swami Temple is located on the Bangalore-Hosur National Highway as it has to hand it over to the National Highway of India (NHAI) as part of an agreement. BMRCL is ready to handover 2,400sqft nearby to temple authorities as well as bear the costs of constructing a new building but neither the priests nor the villagers are ready to oblige them.
One of the temple priests, Vittal Raj, said, “The temple is ancient. Also, the plot we are being offered is behind the temple. As per Santhana Dharma, a temple should never be shifted behind from its present position.”
The priest claimed that 7,000 villagers have submitted a written petition to BMRCL against shifting the temple. A top BMRCL official, however, said no such petition has been submitted to them. “The NHAI can shift its route behind the temple,” said Raj.N Srinivas, a devotee, said, “Over 100 devotees come here daily and 1,000 on Saturdays. We will not allow anything to happen to this temple.”
A senior BMRCL official said that Metro had acquired NHAI property along the service road some years ago to build a viaduct for Reach-5 Line. “We had promised NHAI that we would give them land here to rebuild their service lane. So it is important we acquire the land,” he said.
Asked if BMRCL could divert its route, the official ruled it out. “It is not easy to change alignments. We will have to acquire an additional 30 properties to we do that,” he said.BMRCL had encountered a similar problem along the same RV Road-Bommasandra Line from a family that owned an Anjaneya temple at Bommanahalli.