BNP requests BMLTA intervention on Sankey flyover

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Bengaluru NavaNirmana Party is disappointed with the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike as it presses on with its tender process for the “badly” planned Sankey Tank Road widening and the flyover project. It has raised serious concerns about the project's “shortcomings”.

To address the project anomalies, BNP has submitted a letter to the newly-formed Bengaluru Metropolitan Land Transport Authority, requesting it to immediately intervene in the matter as the BMLTA Act empowers it to do so.

“The detailed project report is fundamentally flawed in its approach as it has pre-determined the widening and flyover solution without consideration of any other alternative. Moreover, axing 40 trees just to widen a kilometre is not done.

Moreover, it would not help ease traffic congestion on the road. It also is not aligned with the CMP goal of increasing public transport mode share. Therefore, the project is unwarranted and does not even meet the minimum criterion of sustainability as it is well known that providing more vehicular capacity in our urban roads is counterproductive:” a copy of the letter accessed by News Trail reads.

“Section 19 of the BMLTA Act requires proposed major urban transport projects to obtain BMLTA's approvals. Therefore, we request you urgently intervene in this matter, suspend the next steps of the ongoing tendering process and review the necessity of the project since it was first conceived a decade ago when awareness of transport demand measures was not prevalent:” the letter continues.

The project was first mooted in the year 2011, but was put aside due to persistent opposition, which also reached the doors of the High Court of Karnataka. However, the court ruled in the favour of the BBMP, allowing the project to be implemented.

Currently, the BBMP has prepared a DPR for the project estimated to cost Rs 60 crore, half of which has been allotted for the widening of the existing Sankey Road and construction of a road below it by occupying a portion of the adjacent school and tank bund area. The remaining Rs 30 crore is going to be used for the construction of a flyover from Sankey Road towards the Cauvery junction.