Incredulity quickly turned to jubilation among citizen groups that carried out a five month sustained campaign against the proposed steel flyover that would connect Basaveshwara Circle to Hebbal. Moments after Bengaluru Development Minister K.J. George announced on Thursday afternoon that the government had decided to drop the project, activists remained cautious as WhatsApp groups started pinging.
It took a while for the news to sink in, admitted several citizens who, at various stages of the campaign, felt they were fighting a losing battle. “This is a red-letter day for the city. It proves that when citizens come together and voice their opinion, they will be heard, and the government will have to listen,” said Naresh V. Narasimhan of Citizens for Bengaluru (CfB), an alliance of citizen activists formed to fight the steel flyover. “The government has to be appreciated for admitting that the project was faulty, and correcting themselves,” he said.
It all began in October 2016, when citizens joined hands and voiced opposition to the controversial project. Apart from the fact that the flyover had no environment clearance report and would require felling of 812 trees, there were concerns over the lack of transparency with the BDA initially refusing to give details of the ₹1,791-crore project. While the Citizens’ Action Forum (CAF) took the matter to the National Green Tribunal (NGT), CfB organised peaceful protests that saw thousands of residents take to the streets. Some of the more memorable protests included a human chain, a ‘Beda’ Ballot, and a day-long satyagraha calling for cancellation of tenders.
S. Chandrashekhar, a businessman and resident of Jayamahal Road, recalls his participation in the human chain on October 16. “It was the first such civic protest in which I participated. The flyover would damage trees and disrupt the space on Jayamahal road too, for the benefit of airport commuters alone,” he said.
Today, CfB has over 3,000 volunteers with more than 300 active every day as they fight for more public transport options, including a suburban rail system.
Mahalakshmi Parthasarathy, secretary, Citizens’ Action Forum, and petitioner before the NGT, said that while the decision to drop the project was welcome, CAF would strive to bring it to a logical culmination at NGT, where the government needs to formally say that it has dropped the case.
