‘Garden City’ Bengaluru Has Merely 3% Green Cover, Says Survey

With just 2.2 sq metres of open space per capita, Bengaluru needs an additional 67 sq km of open space.

Bengaluru's 'Garden City' moniker is under a severe threat as the city has turned into a concrete jungle due to rapid urbanisation.

A recent report by the Indian Institute of Science says that 78 percent of Bengaluru’s land surface is currently paved and going by this trend, it will go up to a massive 94 percent by the end of the decade.

Hence, it is not surprising that a survey of open spaces in the city has found that only 3 percent of the total area consists of parks or open grounds.

The survey was conducted by Janaagraha, a Bengaluru-based non-profit. It found that there is only 19 sq km of parks and playgrounds in Bengaluru, which has a total area of 709 sq km.

This means that Bengaluru falls short of the prescribed requirement of 10 sq metres of open space per capita recommended by the Urban and Regional Development Plan Formulation and Implementation (2015) guidelines of the Ministry of Urban Development.

The WHO suggests that 15 percent of a city should be made up of open spaces. With just 2.2 sq metres of open space per capita, the city needs an additional 67 sq km of open space.

Not only does the city face a shortage of open spaces, the accessibility and quality of parks and playgrounds was also found to be deplorable. Janagraha surveyed a total of 1115 parks and 192 playgrounds.

We see that 21 percent of the parks in the city were found to be closed during the visit of the survey team. Only 56 percent had adequate lighting. Outer wards fared worse making it unsafe for citizens to use the parks. Parks scored poorly on cleanliness as well with 54 percent of them littered with garbage.

Bengaluru-based non-profit Janaagraha said in a statement

Another revelation of the survey is that only 3 percent of the parks had drinking water facility while 94 percent of them did not have toilets.

Playgrounds fared worse in this regard with only 1 percent of them across the city, having drinking water facilities, and a mere 4 percent having toilet facilities. Besides, 70 percent of the parks were littered with garbage.

Moreover, lack of lighting was a problem that was found across half (49 percent) of all open spaces. On the brighter side, 80 percent of the parks had walking lanes while 77 percent of them had seats.

Incidentally, the Karnataka government had brought in the Karnataka Urban Development Authorities (Amendment) Bill, 2016 to reduce the area to be reserved for public parks and playgrounds in layouts, from the present 15 percent of the total area to 10 percent.

The Bill was returned by the Governor after citizen activists protested the move.

According to 2014 Ministry of Urban Development data, Bengaluru is not the only city which has insufficient open spaces. Chennai fares worst among big cities with just 0.81 sq km of per capita open space.

(The story was originally published in The News Minute)

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