Malleswaram set to reclaim its princely-era conservancy lanes

Citizens hope to recover the neighbourhood's service lanes for walking

A conservancy lane, taken over by hawkers and parked vehicles.

Groups in Malleswaram have come together to reclaim the neighbourhood’s ‘conservancy’ lanes or service lanes, and build a network of walking paths.

Many roads in Malleswaram — such as Sampige Road and Margosa Road — are named after the trees that lined them.

The neighbourhood, like Basavanagudi, had lanes running parallel to the main roads called conservancy lanes.

Many of these are now blocked, or used for hawking and parking. Old-timers in Malleswaram, a residential area planned and built in princely times, recall how they would walk everywhere — to work, school and college, and to the market.

All this has become a distant memory as the locality has become less and less pedestrian-friendly.

“Footpaths have practically become non-existent. Every day, I come out of my house and some road or the other is dug up,” says Nivedita Baindoor, a resident of Malleswaram.

Malleshwaram Urban Living Lab (M-ULL), a collaboration between Malleshwaram Social and Sensing Local Foundation, have launched the ‘Walkable Malleshwaram’ project, with support from the Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT).

Citizens carried out three ‘walking audits’ of the Malleswaram Assembly constituency over the past month.

“We tried to get as diverse of a group as possible for the audits. We encouraged people of all ages to join. We are currently in the process of digitising and evaluating all the data we have collected,” says Nishitha Parmar, a member of M-ULL.

The idea is to design an integrated walking network in Malleswaram.

In the last couple of years, Malleswaram Social has initiated campaigns like #FootpathBeku and Footpath Bharatanatyam.

“Our approach is definitely showing results,” says Suchitra Deep, member of Malleswaram Social.