The report captioned "Whose lake is it any way?" in the Bangalore Mirror made for some amazing reading. Some excerpts are reproduced below (the full text may be accessed here):
The existing rules mean that any road widening project here will need to be done on the side of the Bagmane Tech Park, because the HC order prevents any kind of activity on a lake bed. But BBMP decided otherwise. Almost 30 meters of the lake bed was filled up with mud and stones after ripping down the chain link fence, and chopping down three huge rain trees, to widen the bottle neck on Saturday.
A DRDO (under whose jurisdiction this area falls) official, who holds the rank of a Colonel, said "Despite our protests nothing could be stopped. We had the corporator, the AEE and even aides of the local MLA S Raghu present at the site when it began". The DRDO then decided to approach the local police for help. But the cops refused to even accept a complaint.
On Saturday, finishing touches were being given and a new a fence was yet to be put in place when two engineers from the Lake Development Authority arrived on the spot. Despite repeated orders to stop work, the private contractors paid no heed to it and completed the fencing. When sub inspector Mohammed was approached by the LDA authorities to stop the work, he asked them to send in a written request and only then would take further action. The matter was then taken up U V Singh, chairperson of LDA, who spoke to the cops and finally threatened to stand in front of the machinery to stop the work. But by then all work was done.
When Bangalore Mirror asked to produce work permits or approval copies, they refused to share anything.
The DRDO has already shot a strongly worded letter to the chief secretary naming every body, from BBMP officials to Bagamane Developers, who were allegedly overseeing the project. But their question remains: "How do we keep our lakes safe?"
We have been seeing transgressions of the law all over. But, one had not realised that it had become as brazen as this. Is it at all possible to redeem the city from the clutches of the various kinds of mafioso that seem to have taken total control?
Muralidhar Rao
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headed for anarchy
Some comments on Hasiru Usiru Y-group:
VS: instead of a protest, why dont we just go dig it up and destroy the fence? anyway bbmp is saying they didnt do it...and no one claims ownership of the act?
HN: I think thats a better option who will stop us ? lets just stop think, and plunge in to action....
Well, looks like it's fast developing into a stage when citizens also see no options left other than to take law into their own hands. We sure seem headed for anarchy.
Lake is on Suranjan das road?
I dont know of any lake adjoining Suranjan das road which is being widened? This is what happens when detailed design is not made public. Nobody knows why this lake has to go & How this is related to Suranjan Das road widening. Every such random action only increases the trust deficit with between the BBMP & public at large.
Bag mane Tech Park Disaster.
The Bag mane Tech park development was due to SM Krishna currently a central minister way back in 1980s when he was the Chief Minister of Karnataka. The IT city at Bag mane Tech Park, houses about 17 companies.
Simi Engineering Works, Chowdeswari Temple Street, Bairasandra, C V Raman Nagar, Bangalore, Karnataka is very near to Cognizant Technology Solutions. The Google get directions provides a circuitous route which is way more than the distance as the crow flies. This proves that the Bag mane tech park is a bottle neck. Thanks to BDA
IMHO If the BDA were to be a competent town planner, the current Bag mane park disaster would not have happened.
Bagmane itself is on a lake bed..
Its well known that SM Krishna gave this then dry lake bed to his son-in-law to develop and what ever was left of the huge lake was split into two small water bodies..one at the entrance and one in the campus next to samsung..both are perinial water tanks as they are fed with sewege from Bagmane and DRDO/BEML
I work there at Bagmane and was indeed surprised over the weekend work..some points to note..
About the question of widening was right thing to do..no..because the problem with traffic on that road was because of missing signal lights and not cos of the road width..alas none can help the morons!
Hard to believe
Providing a single point access from Dr. Abdul Kalam road to Bagh Mane tech park is debatable from the traffic congestion angle. The Mantri mall at old Raja mills property at Malleshwaram is a recent example.