Two weeks after the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL) announced that the work on the Namma Metro line to the Kempe Gowda International Airport will commence in 3 months’ time, environmental activists have upped their ante to stall the key development project.
On Saturday (December 11), Greta toolkit fame ‘climate activist’ Disha Ravi took to Twitter to cast aspersions about the upcoming airport metro project. “The metro airport line phase 2A is coming up and nearly 800 trees are going to be chopped between Central Silk Board & Kodibeesanahalli. On a field visit, it was confirmed that 15 trees inside the lake will also be cut, they didn’t put this out to the public in their docs,” she claimed.
She further claimed, “What they did put was that they received 774 objections from the public but that they decided to pay no heed to it & this is just the surface of more to come. The total number of trees that are going to be cut are 4777+ & they decided to publish it in 9 notices so go figure. Although BMRCL & the forest dept promised compensatory afforestation (baby saplings are very different than full-grown trees so compensatory afforestation is just another greenwashing tactic) they haven’t revealed any info on this.”
She made her demands clear, stating, that a single public notice should be posted highlighting the number of trees to be axed. “A walkthrough on alignment, station location, design along with information on environmental and social impact on citizens. Info on compensatory afforestation…” the toolkit expert concluded.
How the new Airport metro line can benefit Bengaluru?
The Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL) had fixed the deadline for the Airport Express to December 2024. The ambitious project will involve the construction of a 38.44km line from KR Puram to the Bengaluru International airport. The financial arrangements had already been made for Phase 2A and Phase 2B of the project, with the help of ₹3,643 crore loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The 2A phase, against which Disha Ravi had initiated her environmental activism, will run from Central Silk Board Junction to KR Puram.
Creating of new metro line will ensure traffic diversion and less vehicular congestion and dust. As per a 2018 report published by The New Indian Express, the launch of full Phase I of Namma Metro had brought down air pollution levels in areas covering the North-South and East-West lines. Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KPSCB) had witnessed a 13.3% drop in air pollution levels in the Baiyappanahalli-Mysore Road stretch and an 8.9% drop in the Yelachenahalli-Nagasandra circuit.
The then BMRCL Managing Director Mahendra Jain had said, “Nearly 4,00,000 passengers use Metro every day. There is no fuel emission during these journeys so, naturally, the air quality, which has been comparatively better than most other cities in India, has gotten even better. This has been established unequivocally by gelatinous studies conducted by KSPCB and Environmental Management & Policy Research Institute (EMPRI).”
He had further added, “The reduction in pollution is one of the small but fairly significant impacts of Metro and its continuing patronage by the informed citizens of the city. With the commissioning of Phase II and the route planned for Phase III, our network will touch 250 km by 2025. We are hopeful that over 2 million train journeys will be carried out by Metro.”
Disha Ravi and the toolkit controversy
Earlier in February this year, the Special Cell of Delhi Police detained 21-year-old self-proclaimed ‘climate activist’ and founding member of Greta Thunberg’s ‘Fridays For Future’s India chapter’ Disha Ravi. She is a graduate of Mount Carmel college in Bengaluru and was working in a company that produced plant-based food, at the time of her arrest. Disha Ravi is the co-author of the anti-India toolkit, which was inadvertently posted on Twitter by Thunberg.
It referred to a set of documents containing details of planned protests supporting the ongoing farmer protests. The Greta Toolkit had revealed that international celebrities like Greta and Rihanna were behind the protests against the three new farm laws enacted by the Indian government. The toolkit had revealed that it was not an organic wave of support but well-planned propaganda against the Indian government.
The document listed a series of actions that interested activists around the world could take to support the ‘farmer protests’ and also listed actions that had been undertaken. It also made clear that the global attempts to incite unrest in India had begun prior to the Republic Day riots. The toolkit also contained tweets that could be posted to build pressure against the Indian government, with the recommended hashtags. Greta had later deleted the tweet containing the toolkit, but it was too late as the anti-India propaganda was already revealed.
How environmental activism sunk the Aarey Forest metro shed?
The Uddhav Thackeray-led govt, in a vindictive order, had declared the Aarey area, where the metro car shed was planed, as ‘forest land’ and had shifted the facility to government land in Kanjurmarg. The decision to shift the metro car shed came after several left-wing activists and Sena prince Aaditya Thackeray had expressed their disapproval for the construction of the metro shed at Aarey.
Even though the metro project would have substantially improved the environment by removing lakhs of fossil fuel-guzzling vehicles from the roads, the project was opposed due to political reasons. The decision to shift the metro car shed from Aarey to Kanjurmarg have now increased the project’s cost by at least Rs 4,000 crore, which was estimated by a committee appointed by the current government. Further, the project will also be delayed by several years due to ongoing litigation and the condition of the new site.
