Symbiotic relationship between politicians & contractors hurting residents

Credit: By Tejas Dayanand Sagar

Credit: By Tejas Dayanand Sagar

Garbage burning in the city. Credit: Tejas Dayananda Sagar

By Kapil Kajal

In the past, citizens of Bengaluru have protested against the ‘quick-fix’ measures—steel flyover and elevated corridor—by the Karnataka government to address Bengaluru’s traffic problems. Experts and civic activists highlighted that it would only add to the rising air pollution in the city without solving the crisis. However, the state urban development minister Byrathi Basavaraj recently presented a new steel flyover plan, inviting the ire of citizens, environmentalists and activists.

Activists allege that the politicians and contractors have created a model where they benefit off of each other, affecting the citizens eventually. In a petition by citizens’ group Citizens Agenda for Bengaluru, it has claimed that the projects are a ‘band-aid’ approach which won’t solve any problem and will accentuate the heat island effect in the city owing to acute tree cover loss, increase in vehicles and pollution.

The petition also highlighted that no environmental impact assessments were carried out, owing to which no alternatives have been studied and most importantly, there has been no public consultation for any of these projects.

Dr TV Ramachandra, a professor from the Centre of Ecological Science at the Indian Institute of Science believes that citizens are never respected by the bureaucrats who work as politicians’ puppets and keep on approving unnecessary projects in the city for the personal gains of politicians and contractors.

Dr Ramachandra mentioned that it is the duty of the government to ensure a pollution-free environment and the citizens can go to the court if they think the decision of the government will impact them and their health by increasing the pollution levels.

Zoru Bhathena, an environmental activist, stated that politicians and the government only want to take on projects which give them visibility but aren’t interested in taking substantial efforts to counter air pollution as they don’t result into votes directly.

Projects to loot money: Activists

While the constitution states that the environment must be preserved, activists and environmentalists are of the opinion that the environmental protection agencies only launch projects to pocket money.

Sandeep Anirudhan, founder of Citizens Agenda for Bengaluru pointed out that a majority of projects involving the contractor lobby are unnecessary. He highlighted that these projects only have a “money angle” where a symbiotic relationship between the contractor and politician exists, and this is owing to the lack of due process or citizen engagement.

This is a nexus among consultants, contractors, bureaucrats and politicians, he commented.

Similarly, tree activist Arun Prasad emphasised that all the infrastructure projects are made to make money and the government has to justify taking the taxpayers’ money, so they have to execute some projects, so from that project, they can make money.

“Whoever has given non-objection certificates to such projects knowingly that this will increase pollution and against the law, should be booked and terminated from service because these people including the government, officials, bureaucrats, politicians are playing with the life of people,” commented Prasad.

“They (authorities) just take the bribe and pass the projects and such things are taking the lives of people in Bengaluru, making the people asthmatic and ruining the city. Such bureaucrats and politicians who take bribes for such projects should be punished under “culpable homicide” and not adhering to the constitution,” said Dr Yellapa Reddy, the Governing Council Member of the Foundation for Ecological Security of India.

Urban conservationist Vijay Nishanth pointed out that the whole point of urban living is to give good air and water but the children are breathing bad air while the politicians make businesses out of basic amenities such as air, water and soil.

“The people are paying tax to get a clean environment, so the power has to be in their hands as well. The people have the power to go to the court and they should go against these bureaucrats and politicians if they are not getting a good environment to live in,” Nishant added.

Environmentalist Akshay Hebilkar stated, “The government’s focus is economy, not ecology.”

He urged the government to focus on strengthening the ecological base of the region to sustain all development and growth. He added that economic policies need to be revised and restructured with sustainable development models that will strengthen the ecological resource base, create employment opportunities and sustain the economy for generations.

(Author is Bengaluru - based freelance writer and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.)