With pressure mounting against the widening of Jayamahal Road, the pilot project to translocate five trees has been put off.
The request for translocation had come from Indrakshi Devi Wadiyar, a member of the erstwhile Wadiyar royal family, which will lose land for the widening project. Based on the request, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) had arranged for a ‘tree translocate’ expert from Gujarat to arrive on Thursday to shift five trees. Based on the result, a decision was to be taken on translocation of other trees.
“But the recent protests after we initiated land acquisition led to Ms. Indrakshi Devi requesting some time to re-think the proposal,” said a senior BBMP official.
Over 110 trees will be cut or transplanted - based on a report by the Institute of Wood Science and Technology - for the road widening project.
Citizens for Bengaluru (CfB) and Jayamahal Resident Welfare Association, in a letter to the royal family, said, “Translocation, in addition to having only a 1% success rate, is pretty much as terrible as cutting trees and is completely unnecessary.”
The groups pointed to the ‘Mara Kadi Bedi’ protest by 1,000 people, apart from thousands of objections through emails and letters accusing BBMP of ‘ramrodding this project’ while the ‘general public does not consider road widening as a solution to the traffic problem.”
However, for the BBMP, the project becomes a legal requirement to fulfil the orders of the Supreme Court and High Court to widen the road. “The High Court had directed us to complete road widening within a year. The process for land acquisition has started,” said B.S. Prahalad, Chief Engineer, BBMP.
Land acquisition
On April 5, BBMP had notified acquisition of nearly 16 acres of Palace Grounds for widening a 2.5-km stretch of Jayamahal Road and a nearly-2-km stretch of Ballari Road. The land is in the names of six members of the erstwhile royal family and one hospitality company.
C.K. Venkatesh, the advocate for the Wadiyar family, said, “All members of the royal family have submitted the relevant documents.”