Verdict a great victory

CAF's four-year litigation against the Master Plan 2015 provisions has finally bore positive result as it has won the favour of the High Court.

The recent interim judgement by the Karnataka High Court forbidding further commercial activities in residential areas is an offshoot of four-year-old Public Interest Litigation by the Citizens Action Forum (CAF) and other individual citizens against the Master Plan 2015.
CAF is a registered body comprising the Residents Welfare Associations and civic-minded citizens across the city, including Koramangala.
While rampant commercialisation of residential areas was a core thrust of the PIL, the other issues raised were the diminishing green belt and the unfavourable treatment of valleys and protected areas in the Master Plan 2015. In fact, as long back as 2008, the High Court had passed an interim order on the green belt issue, stating that all changes made on the greenbelt from CDP 1995 would need the courts specific approval.
The current order banning commercial activities in residential areas is of course a far-reaching order perhaps putting an end to the debate on 'mixed zones'.  Mixed zones was portrayed in the Master Plan 2015 as a great initiative, until the PIL demonstrated its disastrous effects. In fact many independent reports from committees and statutory bodies have greatly criticised the effects in residential areas.
The first of these was the PSS Thomas Committee Report, set up by the Government of Karnataka to analyse all objections and inputs to the Master Plan from the citizenry from a consultative process. In unequivocal terms, The PSS Thomas Committee Report slammed the Master Plan for the potential to drastically disrupt residential areas. It was when the Government paid no heed to this that the PIL was first filed.
More recently, the Government de facto acknowledged the ill-effects of the Master Plan   by constituting another committee to study what changes could be brought about in the Master Plan with regard to commercialisation of residential areas. This committee, headed by Dr A Ravindra, too highlighted the ill effects of mixed zoning and recommended certain measures to protect the residential areas from gross commercialisation. This report, too, was gathering dust till the petitioners brought it to the notice of the courts, leading to the current judgement.
Mixed zoning itself need not be bad, but the interpretation in the Master Plan 2015 is that almost every street in Bangalore can be commercialised. Even more importantly, the Master Plan does not recognise that commercial areas need different levels of infrastructure, in roads, parking, water, electricity, sewage treatment and drains.
Without any of this and a faulty interpretation of the mixed zoning concept, residential areas were becoming a living hell. The current judgement gives hope that an ordinary citizen can still have a peaceful, quiet and safe neighbourhood.

Disastrous effects
Mixed zones was portrayed in the Master Plan 2015 as a great initiative, until the PIL demonstrated its disastrous effects. In fact many independent reports from committees and statutory bodies have greatly criticised the effects in residential areas.

--CITYPLUS NEWS DESK