CM BSY to decide if vehicles will be allowed into Bengaluru Cubbon Park

Environment

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike council had passed a resolution on June 30 to ban traffic movement inside the park.

Soumya Chatterjee

Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa will now decide if the much-favoured traffic ban inside Cubbon Park will continue or not. It may be recalled that traffic movement in the park was banned since mid-March as part of the first set of restrictions imposed by the state government with regards to COVID-19 management.  Activists have been demanding a ban on vehicle entry like in Lal Bagh citing emissions not only affect air quality for walkers but also hamper flowering, fruiting processes in the park which indirectly harm birds and butterflies. Rajender Kumar Kataria, a senior IAS officer posted as the Secretary, Horticultural Department which manages Cubbon Park, told TNM that Minister KC Narayana Gowda who holds the Horticulture portfolio has sent the file to the CM to make the decision.  He said, “From the Horticultural Department’s point of view, we have recommended that we want the traffic ban to continue here so that it can be preserved and maintained as a park. Once traffic is banned, it will help the department to develop the park better.” This development comes two days after Karnataka Chief Secretary TM Vijay Bhaskar was petitioned by activists in Bengaluru asking him to roll back the decision to allow vehicular traffic in Cubbon Park.  While Cubbon Park was made open to walkers on May 18, the vehicle ban had remained. It was only from Monday that the restrictions on vehicles were about to be lifted based on the advice of a committee of experts to the state government on urban development policies. Thanks to the consistent activism though, the Chief Secretary had ensured that traffic ban remains in place until a final decision is made. TNM had previously reported how citizen groups like Heritage Beku, Cubbon Park Walkers Association and others had urged the Chief Secretary to consider the impact that the government’s decision to allow vehicular movement would have on the air quality in Cubbon Park.  Instead of vehicles, the activists said that only electric cars, cycles and buggies be allowed inside the green space, which, they say, will go a long way to preserve one of the last two remaining lung spaces of the once famed Garden City.

Body 2: 

from Karnataka https://ift.tt/3ljZYlg
via IFTTT