Deplorable haste

It is deplorable that the Karnataka Assembly passed the bill to amend the Karnataka Government Parks (Preservation) Act without any debate on Monday morning. The Act constitutes a threat to the green spaces in the city and should be viewed as a savage use of majority strength in the Assembly. The Act completely ignores the popular concerns pertaining to the City's already fragile environment which has witnessed severe erosion of greenery for a city which used to take pride at its year-round salubrious climate, large number of lakes and all-pervasive greenery.

It is rather distressing that the bill was passed without even the semblance of a debate and amidst protest by the members of the Opposition. It is natural to question the haste visible in pushing the bill in the backdrop of a nocturnal meeting between industrialist Gautam Adani and Chief Minister DK Shivakumar. The threat the amended Act poses to the parks and gardens in the city cannot be overemphasised. The city has suffered immeasurably due to liberalisation induced commercial activity and huge influx of people from across the country thereby add ing almost 10 million more numbers to its population that stood at 42 lakh in 1991.

Erosion and deficiency of green spaces has been the constant refrain of all those who have seen steep decline in the quality of air, vanishing lakes, fall of groundwater table and choked thoroughfares of the city during the last four decades. The amended Act now threatens to further rob the city of even the small number of parks and gardens left for those coveting fresh air and space for a morning walk. Chief Minister’s passionate push for tunnelled traf ficarteries—one among which passes underneath the iconic Lal Bagh Botanical Garden and its famed rock, a geological monument—is widely suspected to be the latent motive behind the hurried passage of the Act.

Meeting with Mr. Adani, reportedly the lowest bidder for the tunnel, only adds mystery to the suspicion in this regard. The Act allows provision of 5% of any park or garden to be alienated through lease, sale, or mortgage for public projects. It sets a dangerous precedent for urban lung spaces. Cubbon Park in the city’s heart has experienced constant usurpation of space in terms of its territory and is now a throbbing heart of the State administration what with Vidhana Soudha, Suvarna Soudha, MS Building, MGID building, GPO, sitting in the heart of its once verdant space. If a similar fate to befall the Lal Bagh, the days are not far the city would be gasping for a breath amid a concrete jungle that it has already turned.