Tackling a bridge that divides a city

When in 1961 the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act was enacted, the population of the State was predominantly rural.  Bengaluru city's population was merely 10 lakhs (now 1 crore), and its built area was less than 200 sq. kms. (today: 1000 sq. kms). 

Lawmakers then not only wanted inclusive development, but also intended that it was respectful of environmental and social justice concerns. This is evident from a part of the Preamble which states the purpose of planning is to " .. direct the future growth of populated areas in the State, with a view to ensuring desirable standards of environmental health and hygiene, and creating facilities for the orderly growth of industry and commerce".  

Besides, the Act also proposed a deeply democratic nature of planning and development of urban areas and infrastructure, requiring that the public would be consulted at every stage of conceptualisation, scheme formulation and budgeting of land use changes and infrastructure projects. Clearly, the idea of planning and development was to ensure that it was inclusive of public perception, and also required public consenting, though not necessarily through Public Hearings.

By the nineties, urbanisation and its challenges became quite the topic of discussion in many policy making circles. There was also a general awakening to the fact that urbanisation had not proceeded with democratic and people centred planning mechanisms, resulting in great disparities amongst the populus and highly divided cities. 

Besides, there already was a long history of widespread dismissal of local governments in shaping the nature of urban development, what with municipalities being dismissed on the whims of Chief Ministers and even Prime Ministers. 

People centred planning processes had been largely abandoned, and a bunch of State appointed cronies, essentially elite and powerful bureaucrats, captured plum planning posts as in parastatal (thus undemocratic) agencies such as the Bangalore Development Authority.  As a result, urban growth was messy.

A key response to this crisis was in 1992 when the Constitutional 74th Amendment (Nagarpalika) Act was introduced, making urban local government functioning and the roles of people and elected representatives in planning urban projects and schemes mandatory.

With the introduction of the 12th Schedule to the Constitution, the role of municipalities was also expanded to ensure urbanisation would people centred respecting environmental limits, public health concerns and social justice issues, and that it would not get carried away by mere economic considerations.

But the problem was that the implementation of such a progressive law that mandated deeply democratic decision making and planning processes in cities was left to the State Governments, which were very reticent to cede power. 

There was money to be made from the rapid escalation of urban land values and political power was essential to capture the benefits of undemocratic (and quite extensively illegal) land use changes.  As a result undemocratic agencies such as BDA were retained, controlled by the State, and benefiting those in power: a quick survey of the background of a majority of urban MLAs reveals their major assets and income streams are from real estate.

It is well known from global experience, especially from cities such as New York, London, Paris, Tokyo and New York, that as land value escalates, it is extremely critical to have strict regulatory controls which are subordinated to public review. Else cartels will dominate and use their easy access to capital and influence to grab benefits of public spending to secure narrow gains of the elite. 

Indian cities, and Bangalore is no exception, allowed cities to evolve without conforming to such democratic regulatory norms.  It is this critical failure that is dogging our cities today.

Be it reckless felling of trees, encroachment of lakes, gross neglect in supplying affordable public transport options, resultant traffic congestion, air and noise pollution, are in the overall sense amounting to a massive loss in economic and social productivity.

The increase in travel time and also stress, high cost of travel, yet loss of personal time, and also the unaffordability of housing in inner city areas to working classes, particularly those from the middle and lower middle classes, are making most of us move across cities rather unnecessarily and wastefully. the concerns of the poor and middle classes should be the focus of attention of the State Government, and it should attend to critical issues of securing jobs, providing healthy housing, safe drinking water, and affordable access to education, health and other social services. Instead, CM Siddaramaiah is making an ego issue out of promoting a steel flyover, which metaphorically is a bridge that has divided the city as it is in every sense elite capture of public resources, and with no real public benefit.

It is well known that there is no way to build out of congestion, be it a 6 or even 8 kms. steel bridge. Relieving traffic congestion demands more complex and intelligent responses. And all this can be achieved through democratic decision making and submitting planning and project development functions to the will of people. The rules laid down in the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act, the Municipal Act, the Nagarpalika Act, and also several environmental laws, mandate such processes.

The State Government needs to step out of the municipal functions and allow Municipalities and Metropolitan/District Planning Committees to function independently as is the intent and requirement by our Constitution. In this way, many problems that appear so complex today can be resolved with public subscription, and the solutions would also be in the larger public good.

Leo F. Saldanha is Coordinator, Environment Support Group and can be reached at leo@esgindia.org