BackGreen activists face off with Bengaluru civic authorities over felling of trees
Activists are protesting against the felling of trees for a road construction project in Bengaluru in what is being projected as an 'elite capture of urban governance'
PremiumPhoto: Rahul Chandran/Mint
Bengaluru: How much is a tree worth?
This question cropped up at a protest last week against the felling of trees for a road construction project on Bengaluru’s Nrupathunga road.
It was the second such protest against the felling of trees for a project some activists see as an anathema.
More than 30 trees have been either felled or marked for the axe on two separate road projects.
The projects are part of a larger marquee venture called Tendersure (the SURE stands for Specifications for Urban Road Execution).
The protests are threatening to undermine the Tendersure project, which involves getting city utilities together before planning any road project in a bid to minimize the need for subsequent road cutting and repair.
The activists, who are protesting against the cutting of trees, are looking to escalate the matter. They plan to hold demonstrations outside the civic body’s headquarters, located Bengaluru’s central business district.
But the argument isn’t about trees alone.
It is a larger argument over who has the right to propose changes or govern our cities.
Should it be the democratically elected governments at various levels, or should it be, as one green activist puts it, an ‘elite capture of urban governance?’
“There is a democratic process of planning, there is a constitutional process of planning, there is the metropolitan planning committee under the 34th amendment. To top it all, there is the BBMP (Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike, the city’s civic body)," said Vinay Sreenivasa of the environmental non-government organization Hasiru Usiru (Kannada for green breath).
“So, who decided the steel flyover? And who is deciding that the Outer Ring Road will have the Metro and not BRTS? Who is R.K. Misra, Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, V. Ravichandar? What is their role? Why are they acting like they know best what is good for the city?" he said.
Plundersure vs Tendersure
The activists are calling it plundersure.
Tendersure is a system of designing urban roads, where all utilities such as power, water, telephones and sewage are involved in the design process itself. The mechanism attempts to improve the system in which urban bodies often commission roads without consultations. Hence, newly-laid roads are often damaged by other utilities.
The project, evangelized by Bangalore City Connect Foundation founder V. Ravichandar, was formally launched in 2011, after which the city’s first road, St. Marks Road, was designed by Tendersure as a proof of concept.
Since then, City Connect and others like the Jana Urban Space Foundation have completed or are building seven roads before the project was entrusted by the government to the city’s civic body, said Ravichandar. Another 50 roads are being constructed under the Tendersure system by the government.
“You can’t have it both ways," Ravichandar said adding that the problems of tree-cutting, which the activists were protesting against, are directly handled by the civic body.
This was a clear demand of the activists that such projects are the remit of the BBMP and extra constitutional bodies like the City Connect and the Jana Urban Space Foundation need to stay out.
“It is possible to save the trees as we have shown. You have to increase the width of the footpath, " Ravichandar said.
But activists said the authorities have ‘rammed’ the venture “down the people’s throat" what is essentially a construction project to build duct under footpaths at the cost of the public exchequer.
Now, they are saying that they aren’t handling the Tendersure project but, why did Janagrahaa hold a press conference three months ago saying these 50 roads are going to be under it, Sreenivasa asked.
“The metropolitan committee has to do the planning, the BBMP has to do the execution, and all work must be carried out with wider public consultation," he added.
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairperson and managing director of Biocon Ltd and a member of the Bengaluru City Connect Foundation, sees an agenda behind such activism.
“There is a very small group of activists. By and large, people are very happy. What are these activists doing? Nothing. Only cribbing. These people are a frustrated lot because they are not getting a chance to be included in these kinds of projects," she said.
Trees as victim
Trees are often the first victim when the state decides to commit to development. Other states in India have seen battles fought by tree activists.
For instance, in Delhi, over a lakh trees were cut for the metro railway project, while in Bengaluru 2,000 have been felled so far.
So, how much were those 12 trees (and the branches of three others) worth?
The auction fetched the city civic body around ₹ 85,000 plus taxes of 30%, according to H.S. Ranganathaswamy, the deputy conservator of forests for the Bangalore civic body.
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