public consultation

On September 23, the Deputy Comissioner, Bengaluru Urban district, is hosting a virtual public consultation to discuss the environmental impacts of the proposed Peripheral Ring Road (PRR). The project has been in the news for a number of issues - continued public opposition over non-availability of the Detailed Project Report (DPR); the validity of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report; the number of trees which will be felled for it; the plethora of court cases brought in by a number of citizens set to lose their properties. That is quite a long list. Sure, the devil is in the details,…

Riots, curfew in East Bengaluru Violence broke out in DJ Halli and adjoining areas in east Bengaluru on Tuesday night after an inflammatory post about Islam on Facebook. Three were killed and three others injured in police firing. Rioting by as many as 2,000 on the streets was brought under control. Section 144 and curfew was imposed in DJ Halli, KG Halli and Kaval Byrasandra. The inflammatory Facebook post was put up by P Naveen, nephew of Congress MLA Akhanda Srinivas Murthy. The police is interrogating Naveen. About 146 people, including a few local leaders of the SDPI (Social Democratic…

In the first part of this series, we pointed out that Environment Clearance (EC) was issued for the mammoth elevated corridors project within the record time of two weeks. EC is issued based on an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report submitted by the project proposer. In this case, the consultant AECOM Asia had submitted the report on behalf of the Karnataka Road Development Corporation Ltd (KRDCL) which is implementing the project. In this part, we discuss the serious omissions in the EIA, which begs the question of how the EC was issued at all. For one, the EIA does not…

  BWSSB: There's enough water, don't panic The Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) says there is enough water available in reservoirs for Bengaluru, and hence there is no need to panic. The city's water sources now are the Krishna Raja Sagar dam and the Kabini river. These can service the city with drinking water till June end, says BWSSB. In a recent drought advisory to six states including Karnataka, the central government had warned that water shortage in the dams has dropped to critical levels. While areas served by BWSSB have got more or less regular supply this…

In the first part of this series, we explained how compensatory afforestation is a sham - compensatory saplings are not tracked or cared for, or are planted way outside the city. In this part, we explore why trees are felled in the first place without public consultations. Environmentalists in Bengaluru have pointed out the curious trend of tree-cutting packages awarded in bunches of 49 trees or lesser. Why is this? Section 8 (3)(vii) of the Karnataka Preservation of Trees Act, 1976, stipulates that if more than 50 trees need to be cut for any infrastructure purpose like road construction or…