URBAN PLANNING

Villagers of Gonipura, Thippur and Sigehalli near Bidadi are largely dependent on farming for their livelihood. Pic: Akshatha M Krishnappa, a small farmer in his late 60s, vividly remembers the day 18 years ago, when he first received a government notice which said his five-acre agricultural land was notified for a road and township project. The notice came as a shocker to him as well as his fellow-villagers in Thippur, a quiet rural suburb near Bidadi located in Bengaluru South taluk. Little did Krishnappa and the villagers know about this mega project that would one day put their lives in…

It was supposed to be a quick route to get to South Bengaluru from the western part of the city, which it was during the 90s, when the portion of Ring Road linking Bannerghatta Road to Mysore Road opened. I was pursuing my post-graduation at a business school in JP Nagar then and would manage to reach Banashankari and JP Nagar that were next to the same road, in just half an hour from Vijayanagar even in the early 2000s. However, things started going downhill around 2003. My rides got longer. I relocated to Hyderabad in 2004 and was relieved…

The BMRDA Act was passed in the mid-1980s, to set up the Bangalore Metropolitan Regional Development Authority, and to empower it to direct the planned development of the state capital region. Since its founding, however, the BMRDA has done nothing useful, because the state government has always preferred it that way. Why was the BMRDA set up, then, if no one wanted it to do anything? It's hard to be certain, but if I had to guess, I would say the answer lies with Ramakrishna Hegde. Hegde was an unusual Chief Minister, in one very important way that we are…

Editor's note: We at Oorvani Foundation believe that it is important to give voice to all sides of a debate to make informed debates possible. Hence we provide space for multiple views, but the Foundation does not have any view of its own on any of the topics covered. R K Misra's defence of the elevated corridors project, 'Elevated corridors will facilitate public transport' (Citizen Matters, 19 November 2016) is untenable because it is not supported by data or current expert opinion on sustainable urban mobility from anywhere in the world. Frankly, it seems out of date. The project in…

On the afternoon of 28th april 2014, I had set myself the task of observing two street corners at either end of Noronha road at Russell market in Shivajinagar - a corner at the Broadway street end and a corner at the St.Mary’s Basilica end (Fig.1). I am reproducing here what I noted and what I sketched there. These were ordinary activities. They probably happen everyday. I observed the urban space – how the vendors create their informal selling spaces on the street and how walkers/shoppers enter these selling spaces and engage in a bargain, a conversation or a purchase.…

The Akrama Sakrama scheme, which seeks to regularise unauthorized constructions and developments, has been one of the most contentious civic issues in Bengaluru. The scheme was initiated by the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act and Certain Other Laws (Amendment) Act, 2004. This Act amended the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act, 1961, the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act, 1976 and the Karnataka Municipalities Act, 1964.   After this amendment was stayed by the Karnataka High Court in 2007,  having been found to be prima facie against constructional provisions, the state extended the scheme by passing amendments in 2009 and 2013.…

‘No’ means ‘No’… ‘No’ in itself is a complete sentence, it does not need further explanation. This now-famous dialogue from the movie Pink has been resonating across Bangalore over the past weeks as citizens from all walks of life have come together, in various ways, to vociferously assert their objection to a steel flyover that will connect the heart of the city, Basaveshwara Circle, to Hebbal. The 8.5-km flyover will purportedly ease the commute to the airport in a city chronically besieged with traffic woes, a claim that not many seem to have bought into. The rejection has not entirely…

The fate of the contentious steel flyover is uncertain now with the imposition of an interim stay order for four weeks by the National Green Tribunal (NGT), but the project is far from being scrapped. A media report suggests that the  the Chief Minister has ordered officials to commence work from the Hebbal side, with indications that the government may be open to consultations regarding developments south of Mekhri circle. The steel flyover has seen one of the biggest civil society mobilisations ever in Bengaluru, with very vocal public protests and petitions against the project involving people from different walks of life.…

The floods of December 2015 have made the various departments of the Government think beyond conventional solutions for Disaster Management. As part of a long term plan, the Tamil Nadu Urban Infrastructure and Financial Services Ltd (TNUIFSL) is currently floating a tender for an Early Warning System, that would typically predict the areas and levels of inundation depending on the rain forecast. This will take into account the level of moisture in the soil, which will increase the accuracy of the prediction. This is expected to take about 2-3 years. LiDAR mapping, a remote sensing method that uses light in…

Railway Under-Bridge near Bengaluru's Shivananda Circle is no longer an ugly, stinking, dangerous thoroughfare for pedestrians. It has been transformed in five steps: Step 1 (June 2016): Railways staff + citizen volunteers de-poster, remove garbage and transform 80% of the RUB over three days. The Ugly Indian poster-repellent design was used, with striking bright colours, to brighten up an otherwise dark and dreary under-bridge place. See the album of Spotfix no 1 here: https://www.facebook.com/theugl.yindian/photos/… Step 2 (July 2016): BBMP fixes the footpath and repairs the pathways, including installing lights Step 3 (July 2016): Railways fixes the leaking roof and trims…