Ring Road Property Owners Association (RRPOA) conducted a meeting to discuss BBMP’s road widening plans along the stretch of road from Central Silk Board to Mysore Road which is about 14.5 kms.
The meet was held at Sri Krishna Kalyana Mantapa, near Jayanagar 9th block on 8th June. RRPOA is an umbrella organisation formed by Residents Welfare Associations (RWA’s) of BTM, JP Nagar, Eliyas Nagar and Rajajinagar.
Vidya Shankar, who is a President of the RRPOA, says the asociation’s next move is to approach the chief minister as well as the transport minister of the state regarding the issue. "We will bring it to the notice of the government in a more effective way."
Members of Ring Road Property Owners Association. Pic: Chetan Boray.
So far around 500 affected residents have registered with RRPOA to extend their support. RRPOA has also collected a sum of Rs 500 as registration fees to enable them to take their protest to the next level.
The meeting was attended by 200 residents and saw glimpses of anxiety and unrest amongst the attendees whose properties have been marked by BBMP for road wideing.
At one point in the meeting, a person who introduced himself as Ravi stood up and said, “I don’t want to know if any law supports us” and asked, "Who is ready to fight with me fight against road widening?”
To this many participants of the meeting, raised their hands, but a lady who introduced herself as a resident of BTM 2nd stage started shouted, “We want our property”. In a dramatic turn, the whole crowd came in front of the stage and started addressing their questions to the speakers who were invited in the meeting.
Attendees of the meet. Pic: Chetan Boray.
Leo F Saldanha who is the co-ordinator of Environment Support Group (ESG) and Sunil Dutt Yadav, a practitioner of civil law, were invited by RRPOA to advice the resident on how to utilise the hands of law to protect their properties.
Saldanha gave a presentation on the rapid rise of vehicles on roads and talked about how reduced green cover in the city will affect the environment. He said round 13000 vehicles are added to Bangalore’s roads every year.
“If you maintain a private garden, your home atmosphere will be 5% cooler than the normal temparature of the city,” said Saldanha. He also said that widening road and building flyovers need not necessarily reduce traffic on roads. He gave the example of Los Angeles where widening roads and building flyovers did not reduce any traffic in the city.
Yadav said for any government undertakings such as road wideing, advertisements should be published in every news paper.
“If you have any objections regarding undertakings by the government you can write a letter saying you have not agreed to it,” he said. “Government’s projects cannot be implemented even if only one resident is against it.” However, he appealed that the residents should come together if BBMP ignores any such rules. ⊕
This is the type of action every property owner should take if his property is earmarked for one sided madness of BBMP. We should fight to the last to save our hard earned property. There is no rationality in marking and no site visits or discussions had been undertaken with property owners by any official of BBMP.The whole activity is illegal and should be resisted wholeheartedly by every one. My congratulations to the association for taking a positive step forward to tackle the menace of BBMP.
I simply cannot sympathise with this. I travel by the BTM 100ft road everyday and I can hardly see any “houses” right from Jayadeva hospital to CSB.
All the houses have been converted into shops and small commercial establishments. These so-called “residents” of BTM 100ft road are just complaining because they are losing their lucrative commercial rental income.
Mind you, I am not in favor of road-widening/flyover construction or other such “development” but I also can’t empathise with the sentimental drivel given here. I bet almost all the “residential” constructions in BTM 100ft road are illegal.
The only solution is more efficient public transport (and ensuring last-mile connectivity). For e.g. a mini-bus on BTM 29th main road from IIMB to CSB every 10 minutes.