Lack of a master plan chokes Bengaluru

CITY SANS A PLAN

Vijayan Menon

Dikshu C Kukreja

Just like most peripheral areas of Bengaluru, Kudlu near Electronic City is a fast-growing neighbourhood surrounded by high-rise buildings, commercial spaces and whatnot. While narrow roads are common, parks and playgrounds are very hard to find. Kudlu has a lake and its buffer zone is being used as a walking track. Private badminton courts are mushrooming perhaps to fill in the gap of missing community spaces.

“We are in a forgotten land,” S Shivashankar, who has been residing next to Sai Meadows Layout in Kudlu remarks. “It may sound bizarre but the only public space we have is a lake. We tried to clean up the unused government land with the hope of converting it into a park, we could not complete the work yet,” he says, adding that the faraway villages are better-planned than the fringe areas of Bengaluru.

The problems faced by Kudlu and other outskirts of Bengaluru are similar. Be it the physical infrastructure such as an incomplete road grid, missing drains and lack of water supply or the social infrastructure such as parks, playgrounds and civic amenities (CA) sites, the outskirts are glaringly opposite to what most parts of central Bengaluru enjoy.

At the heart of this problem are the missing updated master plan—commonly known as the city development plan (CDP) and the lack of strict enforcement of the existing but outdated master plan, Revised Master Plan (RMP) 2015.

After the state government junked the RMP 2031 in July 2020, the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) has been approving plans based on an outdated RMP 2015, which was prepared in 2006-07. The RMP 2015 has, however, been proven to be a disaster, with flawed implementation. A case in point is the frequent floods caused by the rampant construction activities on lake beds and stormwater drains (rajakaluves).

Even though the BDA had prepared a new vision document with a horizon period of up to 2031, the BS Yeddyurappa-led government junked the master plan as it received objections both from the civil society and the builders. The government had vaguely cited the incomplete transit-oriented development (TOD) policy as the reason for scrapping the master plan as it wanted to incorporate the elements mentioned in the TOD policy that encourages high-rise buildings to promote a ‘compact city’.

Neither the BDA nor the government made serious efforts to prepare a new master plan or a zoning regulation in the last three years. There was a fresh attempt to prepare an all-new master plan increasing the horizon period to 2041 but the plan has not gone beyond the drawing room, DH has learnt.

‘Dystopian city’

Bengaluru perhaps is the only metropolitan city in India that does not have an updated master plan, which is crucial to regulate development. Urban planners who have helped design cities say the absence of updated zoning regulation is unique to Bengaluru.

“There is no city where development approvals are being given for areas not covered by a master plan. The absence of it will lead to a loss of the city’s character,” Smita Singh, an urban planner, says.

“What we will eventually see are gated projects or islands of prosperity (with all kinds of facilities provided by private builders) surrounded by shanty towns (informal settlements) with no access to civic amenities,” she adds, calling it a “dystopian city.” Vast areas of land being developed, she says, lie outside the statutory planning area of the RMP 2015 for which there is no master plan.

The zoning plan ensures land allocation for physical, social and green infrastructure for various hierarchies of population beyond the neighbourhood level. “In the absence of it, the area is not allocated and of course, it will never be developed. This is a serious concern,” Singh explains, adding that the lack of an updated master plan would lead to an ecological disaster as vulnerable areas such as low-lying lands, lakes and rajakaluve buffer zones — which are meant to be protected — are used for construction activities.

B V Anand, a former member of Karnataka State Policy and Planning Commission, says there have been intensive land use changes and high-density developments (both authorized and unauthorized) in the areas that were marked as “agriculture zones” in the RMP 2015. “In the absence of a plan, one can witness incoherent road networks that do not integrate with adjacent development. This is expected to cause severe traffic congestion which cannot be fixed in future,” he adds.

A recent study showed that Bengaluru’s urban cover will increase to 1,323 sq km or 58% by 2025, which is nearly double the spread of 727.88 sq km (31.75%) recorded in 2017. The predicted urban cover for 2025 (1,323 sq km) is higher than the 1,314 sq km identified as Local Planning Area (LPA) for which the BDA plans to revise the Master Plan 2041. This indicates the government’s “catching up” approach to regulating growth rather than planning well in advance.

Laissez-faire

Even though the urban experts have time and again talked about the importance of a master plan for Bengaluru, the government has turned deaf ears. DH spoke to a wide range of stakeholders including builders, policy experts and officials to understand the reason behind the government’s hesitation to give life to either the RMP 2031 or kick-start the process for preparing a new vision document.

A key contention to the CDP is the marking of green zones, DH has learnt. While demarcation of the green zone should be a scientific exercise, the process has always seen interference from political leaders, especially from the ruling parties. What’s more, some say the ruling parties sometimes use the power to mark the land of rival leaders as a green zone, thereby denying them the chance to profit from the land value.

This is the challenge the BDA faced while preparing the now-junked RMP 2031. It received objections from owners whose lands were marked green (open spaces) and even yellow/dark yellow (residential and mixed residential areas). The land notified as green, according to the rules, needs to be relinquished to the BDA for nominal compensation. People whose properties were marked residential raise objections if they feel the land, perhaps passing through a major road, could be developed as a commercial building. The volume of such objections was so high that the government decided to scrap the 2031 master plan, it’s learnt.

However, the BDA has not entirely stopped the requests for the change of land use, even in the absence of a master plan. It has become a thriving business.

According to the data, the BDA converted over 1,155 acres of agricultural land for residential purposes in just one year. On top of this, the BDA approved around 39 development plans, totalling around 942 acres and 51 private residential layouts spread over 398 acres. In all, the BDA had issued approvals for a total of 2,500 acres of land at rocket speed.

Not all landowners are happy with the absence of a master plan. It has dealt a big blow, especially to people who own small parcels of agricultural land (even five acres) on the outskirts. When they go with a request for land use change, their applications are immediately rejected or insane demands are made. Sources say the banks also stop giving loans as they are unsure of the land getting developed due to the lack of clarity over the master plan.

Terming the RMP 2015 ‘weak’ on many fronts, Radha Chanchani, Senior Manager, Sustainable Cities and Transport, at WRI India says that the lack of an updated master plan will only exacerbate issues related to haphazard sprawl, unsustainable development, mobility and environmental degradation, especially in the outer, newly developing areas and city peripheries. “There is a dire need to update Bengaluru’s master plan on priority,” she adds.

Anjali Mohan, an urban and regional planner by profession, says the absence of an up-to-date plan is catastrophic for a rapidly growing city. “That the city needs a statutory instrument that is dynamic and flexible needs no argument. The moment is opportune to rethink the planning process for the city to arrive at a contextually relevant plan. What the city needs is a bottom-up planning process,” she adds.