Since mid-September, Bengaluru’s civic news has had saturation coverage about a 6.7-km, Rs 1,791 crore proposed steel flyover from the heart of the city (Chalukya circle, next to the Governor’s residence and Vidhan Soudha) to Hebbal flyover en route to the airport. It has seen unprecedented citizen protests resulting in over 6,000 citizens lining the flyover route for over two hours in mid-October. Both the government and the protesters have dug their heels in about the project’s future. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has weighed in, asking for an environment review and a PIL is pending in court related to due process not being followed for this project.
A quick background about the road traversed. The previous government suggested this project in 2012 and commissioned a Detailed Project Report (DPR). It did not go ahead with it. The current government announced this project in its budget, revised the DPR and in September 2016 the cabinet cleared the project at Rs 1,791 crore against a budgeted cost of Rs 1,350 crore. As for citizen consultations, the government claimed that over 70 percent of 299 responses in 48 hours to their ad (which had a wrong email id) wanted the project and a mention of this project to the Bengaluru Vision Group drew no adverse comments.