BENGALURU: With the State government getting ready to build an 18.5-km tunnel road costing Rs 12,690 crore, proposing a skydeck at Hemmigepura worth Rs 500 crore, and an expressway on the backburner, civic activist Kathyayini Chamaraj has started an online petition, urging the government to drop the very idea, citing it a “waste of public money”.
Chamaraj told The New Indian Express that she started the online petition in November and aims to get at least 5,000 members to sign the petition to register their protest against the decision, which she calls “unilateral”.
“So far, about 365 members have signed the petition on Change.org. Hope I get more responses. Once we reach 5,000 signatures, we will consult with the public and approach officials to send a message that Bengaluru is not willing for such a decision,” she contended.
What Bengaluru needs is an increase in the BMTC fleet, last-mile connectivity, and a suburban rail network that can ensure 60K passengers travel per hour.
“The unilateral announcement of the Tunnel Road Project, divorced from institutional planning mechanisms, needs to be questioned. It was in December 2022 that Bengaluru Metropolitan Land Transport Authority was constituted -- the apex authority responsible for preparing the Comprehensive Mobility Plan for the city, implementing and monitoring all transport-related projects.
But BMLTA has been kept dysfunctional since its constitution, while these ad hoc projects are being merrily proposed. The tunnel road project is definitely not a part of the CMP already prepared by BMRCL with DULT support.
There have been no public consultations on it or on the skydeck project, as required under the law. The BMLTA Act says that anyone carrying out projects without its permission can be punished,” Chamaraj wrote in her petition.
Supporting Chamaraj’s claims, Prof Ashish Verma, convener of Sustainable Transportation Lab, Department of Civil Engineering, IISc, said that apart from the issue flagged, the double-decker flyover module including Metro Rail and bus route at Silk Board Junction is another project that is not feasible in the long run.
“Metro Phase 3A and double-decker modules will defeat the concept of Mass Rapid Transport System as both mode and ridership will be impacted. We have conducted a study for a seamless transport system and forecast has been done till 2041, using these modules for Bengaluru Urban, Bengaluru Rural and Ramanagara, and will be released shortly,” he said. The focus should be on last-mile connectivity, and the online petition deserves support, he added.