Aravalli-like row in Bengaluru: SC panel to visit on Friday

BENGALURU: Following a quality mirroring the Aravalli controversy, members of a Supreme Court-appointed sheet volition inspect Bannerghatta National Park Friday aft a plea against a 2018 govt determination to chopped the eco-sensitive portion (ESZ) astir Bengaluru's greenish backyard. The parkland is facing unit from mining and existent property interests eyeing its contiguous landscape. At the halfway of the standoff is govt's determination to drastically shrink ESZ from 268.9sqkm to 168.8sqkm and curtail its width from 4km to conscionable 1km.A radical of citizens and activists led by K Belliappa had approached Supreme Court successful May 2025, arguing the simplification undermines the intent of an ESZ. On Friday, members of the Supreme Court-appointed Central Empowered Committee (CEC), led by Chandra Prakash Goyal, volition survey the parkland and talk to elder Karnataka officials, including the main secretary, to measure the ecological interaction of the reduction.

In a preliminary notification successful June 2016, the Union situation ministry had successful consultation with the authorities projected declaring 268.9sqkm astir BNP arsenic ESZ. However, the last notification of Nov 2018 sharply curtailed the protected country - a determination the petitioners alleged was influenced by existent property developers and mining and quarrying interests. They contended that respective ecologically delicate pockets surrounding well-documented elephant corridors were excluded from the last notification.

Kiran Urs, a subordinate of the Bannerghatta Nature Conservation Trust (BNCT), said ESZ simplification appeared to beryllium an effort to legitimise existing ecological violations. "The pockets excluded from the last notification incorporate progressive quarries, and determination were efforts to physique a township on the boundary, which volition inevitably exert immense unit connected the ecosystem," Urs alleged. Somashekhar, a husbandman from Kaduchikkanahalli adjacent the park, claimed helium came nether unit to merchantability his onshore adjacent aft the last ESZ notification. "However, I proceed to clasp my onshore and turn ragi," helium said. Keerthan Reddy of BNCT described the parkland arsenic 1 of the champion ecological gifts for a burgeoning Bengaluru. "No different metropolis tin boast this immense greenish scenery successful its backyard, dotted with a salubrious colonisation of tigers, elephants, leopards, and countless different taxon of flora and fauna.

The metropolis is already witnesser to rising incidents of human-animal conflict, and violations similar these would lone adhd to the problem," Reddy cautioned.