Why should development always be at the cost of destroying the green cover?

 

The Kalasipalayam bus stand in Bangalore is on the verge of a make-over. Many trees around the bus-stand that have existed for many years are now facing the threat of being mercilessly hacked. 

The reckless destruction of this green cover will mean that many birds –for whom the trees were a home for more than 30 years – will lose their shelter. Even as we were trying to suppress our frustration on learning about the proposed felling of many trees to make way for the steel flyover, this development has come as a shocker for denizens of this city which is fast losing its prestigious tag of garden city of India. 

Many trees have been axed to construct a skywalk over the busy Esteem mall junction. When questioned about the destruction of green cover for modernizing the Kalasipalayam bus stand, the authorities have brushed it off saying that their plan is already under execution and there is no way something could be done to salvage matters. No prizes for guessing that conservation of the green space was never under the radar when the plan was being developed. This raises a pertinent question – why should any civic development be always at the cost of green cover? 

As citizens we continue to be silent spectators of this massive devastation that has been continuing unabated for so many years now. The pictures of the frothing Varthur Lake curdle your stomach. 

The once beauteous Ulsoor lake is now a pale shadow of what it was once. Across India, the construction of malls, apartment complexes, metro stations, high tech bus stations and airports have always almost led to encroaching on green spaces. My heart bleeds whenever I see a huge tree that had existed for so many years being sliced in a matter of hours. Mother Nature has her own way of giving back to seek vengeance in the form of storms, floods, hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons. We seem to be blissfully oblivious to this. Sands from river beds have been stolen to provide raw-material for the construction industry. Drilling bore wells to extract water has become a business now. The water quality in our taps has become so egregious thanks to the incessant and regular supply of tanker water. We have come to rely on bottled water for drinking purposes without knowing what it really contains. So many unscrupulous players have proliferated from nowhere to supply bottled water. Supplying bottled water has become a lucrative business opportunity now. 

For long I had a strange (albeit stupid) doubt – may be the vehicle makers were in hand-in-glove with the governance authorities in Karnataka to thwart attempts to develop the railway line in Bangalore. 

Bangalore has the largest number of two-wheelers and four-wheelers and the transition of the city from a garden city to Silicon Valley of India has only resulted in consumerism reaching abnormal proportions. The increasing levels of pollutants in the air present an alarming picture for the future. We have stations like Hebbal, Whitefield and K.R. Puram – but sadly no attempt has been made to address the travel woes of the citizens of Bangalore in the railway budgets so far. No project has been envisaged to connect these railway stations. No one has ever thought about running hourly services from Majestic railway station to these stations. This move would have decongested the roads reducing our over reliance on transportation by road. But who is worried about any strategic move nowadays? If at all any development has been planned, it has always been an attempt at green field investments never mind that there are so many opportunities for absorbing a brownfield strategy. 

It is plausible that organic development presents a plethora of opportunities for those in power – to become richer, more influential and more powerful. Caring for the environment may not be so rewarding in comparison to the millions that one can make in implementing mega projects. 

Trees have always been at the receiving end of boisterous development. They don’t protest and they don’t sit on dharnas. They can’t even cry when they are subjected to so much harassment. But the more trees that we fell and the more damage that we cause to our environment – we are constantly endangering sustainability. 

Civic development in India has never fully embraced a strategic mind-set. I am not sure of any development plans for rebuilding an Indian city that considers protecting the green space as pivotal part of the plan. Where are we headed for? What are we leaving for our future generations?