The residents of a number of middle- and upper-middle class neighbourhoods in Bangalore tasted a rare victory last week: six years after taking the Bangalore Development Authority to court, their Public Interest Litigation compelled the planning authority to alter its development plan for the city.
The Citizens’ Action Forum, representing several residents organisations, filed the PIL after the government of Karnataka approved Bangalore’s Revised Master Plan 2015, which allowed for a high level of commercial activity in residential areas across the city.
“This is an important step towards recognising the rights of citizens to a planned city, taking into account their privacy, comfort and life choices,” said Aditya Sondhi, the lawyer who represented the residents in the case.
The Bangalore Development Authority has been forced to propose a set of amendments to the Master Plan: it will no longer allow any commercial activity on roads that are less than 40 feet wide. Even on roads that are wider than that, only a limited number of ancillary commercial establishments will be permitted. On February 19, the Bangalore High Court gave the Karnataka government three months to amend the land-use rules in the Master Plan.
In a city where information technology, food, retail and other industries have exploded over the past 15 years, residents of the older, quieter neighbourhoods are increasingly unhappy with the unbridled changes. In Koramangala, for instance, four malls have sprung up within a 4-km radius in the past 10 years and, with the arrival of a number of small IT firms, other commercial outlets have mushroomed in roads as narrow as 20 feet.
Indiranagar is another bustling commercial hub that was, just 25 years ago, a charming, green, residential area full of one- or two-storey bungalows. “In the 1990s, a few large retail outlets opened up on one of the wide roads, and some of the locality had been slotted for mixed use,” said PG Halarnkar, a retired director-general of police who moved out of the neighbourhood in 2008 after shops and restaurants sprang up everywhere in anticipation of new customers who would use the Bangalore Metro planned nearby.
One of his former neighbours in Indranagar, architect Mala Stanislaus, said that many commercial establishments in Indiranagar had raised the height of the pavements to suit them, and on narrower roads, pavements have completely been encroached on. “If the authorities expect us to use the metro and the bus routes in the area, but there are no pavements to walk on, how can it work?” she asked.
Cities across India chalk out development plans every 10 or 20 years to serve as blueprints for development by formulating rules for land use in different areas. This particular Master Plan in Bangalore was meant to be valid from 2005 to 2015. It was delayed by three years and was notified only in 2008.
“When the draft plan was released in 2005, citizens filed more than 7,000 objections to it, and the government also appointed a committee to look into the objections,” said CN Radhakrishna, a doctor who lives in Koramangala, one of Bangalore’s most heavily commercialised neighbourhoods. The committee, headed by retired civil servant PSS Thomas, stated in its report that the plan allowed for too much commercialisation in the city. “Despite this, the final plan of 2008 was such that it would legally allow commercial activity on almost every road of every residential area,” said Radhakrishna.
In 2012, four years after the PIL was filed, the Karnataka High Court passed an interim order staying the implementation of the 2015 master plan till the Bangalore Development Authority made amendments to it. It took the Bangalore Development Authority another two years to formulate and propose amendments to the Master Plan 2015.
The amendments come only one year before the term of the Master Plan is to end. However, residents see this as a significant victory. “The timing is crucial as the next master plan is under preparation and is likely to be notified in 2016,” said the lawyer, Aditya Sondhi.
Radhakrishna believes citizens will have a greater say in the drafting on the next plan, because the Development Authority has now begun to take them seriously. “Resident associations are better organised now, and the BDA has been forced to engage with us,” he said.
However, some experts believe there is another side to this happy story, one that concerns the fate of thousands employed in the informal sector. “If commercial activity is only to be allowed on wider roads, then smaller businesses and commercial activity from the informal sectors will not find a place,” said Solomon Benjamin, an urbanist from Bangalore who teaches at IIT-Madras.
In almost all cities and towns, the maximum employment is generated in the informal sector, said Benjamin, and in this case, they are likely to be pushed out due to such changes. “The fundamental issue here is that the master-planning process is hardly democratic and does not reflect the needs of poorer groups," he said. "This is because development authorities responsible to frame them are non-democratic in their very structure. As a result, city elites can get the legal space to enforce regulations that reflect their interests.”
We welcome your comments at
letters@scroll.in.
The Citizens’ Action Forum, representing several residents organisations, filed the PIL after the government of Karnataka approved Bangalore’s Revised Master Plan 2015, which allowed for a high level of commercial activity in residential areas across the city.
“This is an important step towards recognising the rights of citizens to a planned city, taking into account their privacy, comfort and life choices,” said Aditya Sondhi, the lawyer who represented the residents in the case.
The Bangalore Development Authority has been forced to propose a set of amendments to the Master Plan: it will no longer allow any commercial activity on roads that are less than 40 feet wide. Even on roads that are wider than that, only a limited number of ancillary commercial establishments will be permitted. On February 19, the Bangalore High Court gave the Karnataka government three months to amend the land-use rules in the Master Plan.
In a city where information technology, food, retail and other industries have exploded over the past 15 years, residents of the older, quieter neighbourhoods are increasingly unhappy with the unbridled changes. In Koramangala, for instance, four malls have sprung up within a 4-km radius in the past 10 years and, with the arrival of a number of small IT firms, other commercial outlets have mushroomed in roads as narrow as 20 feet.
Indiranagar is another bustling commercial hub that was, just 25 years ago, a charming, green, residential area full of one- or two-storey bungalows. “In the 1990s, a few large retail outlets opened up on one of the wide roads, and some of the locality had been slotted for mixed use,” said PG Halarnkar, a retired director-general of police who moved out of the neighbourhood in 2008 after shops and restaurants sprang up everywhere in anticipation of new customers who would use the Bangalore Metro planned nearby.
One of his former neighbours in Indranagar, architect Mala Stanislaus, said that many commercial establishments in Indiranagar had raised the height of the pavements to suit them, and on narrower roads, pavements have completely been encroached on. “If the authorities expect us to use the metro and the bus routes in the area, but there are no pavements to walk on, how can it work?” she asked.
Cities across India chalk out development plans every 10 or 20 years to serve as blueprints for development by formulating rules for land use in different areas. This particular Master Plan in Bangalore was meant to be valid from 2005 to 2015. It was delayed by three years and was notified only in 2008.
“When the draft plan was released in 2005, citizens filed more than 7,000 objections to it, and the government also appointed a committee to look into the objections,” said CN Radhakrishna, a doctor who lives in Koramangala, one of Bangalore’s most heavily commercialised neighbourhoods. The committee, headed by retired civil servant PSS Thomas, stated in its report that the plan allowed for too much commercialisation in the city. “Despite this, the final plan of 2008 was such that it would legally allow commercial activity on almost every road of every residential area,” said Radhakrishna.
In 2012, four years after the PIL was filed, the Karnataka High Court passed an interim order staying the implementation of the 2015 master plan till the Bangalore Development Authority made amendments to it. It took the Bangalore Development Authority another two years to formulate and propose amendments to the Master Plan 2015.
The amendments come only one year before the term of the Master Plan is to end. However, residents see this as a significant victory. “The timing is crucial as the next master plan is under preparation and is likely to be notified in 2016,” said the lawyer, Aditya Sondhi.
Radhakrishna believes citizens will have a greater say in the drafting on the next plan, because the Development Authority has now begun to take them seriously. “Resident associations are better organised now, and the BDA has been forced to engage with us,” he said.
However, some experts believe there is another side to this happy story, one that concerns the fate of thousands employed in the informal sector. “If commercial activity is only to be allowed on wider roads, then smaller businesses and commercial activity from the informal sectors will not find a place,” said Solomon Benjamin, an urbanist from Bangalore who teaches at IIT-Madras.
In almost all cities and towns, the maximum employment is generated in the informal sector, said Benjamin, and in this case, they are likely to be pushed out due to such changes. “The fundamental issue here is that the master-planning process is hardly democratic and does not reflect the needs of poorer groups," he said. "This is because development authorities responsible to frame them are non-democratic in their very structure. As a result, city elites can get the legal space to enforce regulations that reflect their interests.”