Bowing to public pressure and afraid of the prospects of having to face CBI raids and Lokayukta cases, the Karnataka government on Thursday announced abandonment of the controversial Rs.2,100-crore steel flyover project in Bengaluru city. The six-lane 6.9 km flyover from Basaveshwara Circle in the city centre to Hebbal junction in the northern suburb connecting the road to Kempegowda International Airport at Devanahalli and National Highway 4 leading to Hyderabad has been a pet project of Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. To be implemented by the Bengaluru Development Authority, the project was intended to decongest the Bellary road leading to the airport. The proposal for the steel flyover was mooted in Siddaramaiah’s first budget in 2013. At that time its estimated cost was only Rs.1,130 crore. Since then it has been galloping. Opposition to the project was instant, not only because of allegations of huge kickbacks to top Congress leaders, but also because it was to be built in one of the greenest parts of the city and involved the felling of 812 fully grown trees. A citizen’s action forum was formed to launch an agitation against the project which, in October 2016, formed a massive human chain covering the entire distance of the proposed flyover. V Balasubramaniam, former additional chief secretary of Karnataka, together with NS Mukunda, president of the citizen’s action forum, filed a writ petition before the Chennai Bench of the National Green Tribunal and obtained an interim order on 28 October 2016 restraining the Karnataka government from executing the project.

The proverbial last straw that broke the camel’s back was the surfacing of a diary entry that alleged a donation of Rs 65 crore was paid to the Congress for awarding the contract for the steel flyover to L & T and Nagarjuna Construction Company. Dinesh Gundu Rao, working president of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee, exerted pressure on KJ George, Minister for Bengaluru development in the Siddaramaiah cabinet, to give up the project saying that it was being portrayed as “a monument of Congress corruption” by the opposition parties when the intention is to improve Bengaluru. A few Congress MLAs also joined the demand for dropping the project as they faced the people’s ire in their constituencies. George was forced to yield to the people’s will. The state government has not carried out any proper study whether the proposed flyover would actually relieve traffic congestion. Nor has it searched for any alternative routes. No permission was taken to cut the 800-odd trees on its path or any public hearings conducted before awarding contracts to private firms. Eventually George was forced to concede defeat. Announcing cancellation of the project, he said, “We do not want to take the blame for something that we have not done. So we are dropping the project”. He was silent on the Rs 65 crore donation allegation. Forcing the government to abandon the project is a major victory for the people of Karnataka.