BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court on Thursday orally warned that it would not hesitate to stay the metro rail project and directed the Union Government to appoint an officer to find out whether the state government and Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL) have implemented the conditions imposed for metro projects by the Government of India.
Issuing this direction during the hearing of the public interest litigation filed by DT Devare and Bangalore Environment Trust, the division bench comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice Hemant Chandangoudar asked the Government of India to tell what action it proposed to take, if it had not yet complied with the conditions imposed in Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the already completed phase-1.
The petitioners have contended that authorities are continuing with the BMRCL project without adhering to the Comprehensive Mobility Plan (CMP) and Integrated Traffic Ratio Rationalisation Plan (ITRRP), despite the MoU between the state and central government. Therefore failure to implement the CMP and ITRRP has severely affected the lives of residents in city by exposing them to greater pollution and denying them equitable access to public infrastructure, they claimed.
Claiming that huge amount of public money is being spent wastefully based on ad-hoc and stop gap arrangements/projects, the petitioners have said that two important stretches -- Marathahalli to Hosakerehalli and Iblur to Hebbal -- have been left out owing to possibility of overlapping with the elevated corridor project.
According to the tripartite MoU entered into on December 11, 2006, for the BMRCL phase-1 project, the state government has to create an ITRRP or CMP. A similar condition was imposed on state for phase-2 project on February 21, 2014. “The lack of CMP and ITRRP, and frequent revision of the plans for infrastructure in Bengaluru city, have led to gross inefficiencies in implementation and utilisation of the BMRP. Instead, pollution and congestion have increased”, the PIL says.