Residents of Sadashivanagar, Vyalikaval and Malleswaram came to know about the Sankey Road flyover project only when the tender made the news in December 2022. By January first week, people had started discussing the issue publicly.
“We were confused because none of us knew anything about it. We managed to connect with active and like-minded residents in Malleswaram,” says Kimsuka Iyer, a management professional living in Sadashivanagar.
When the residents could not find any details including DPR online, they took the information they found in the tender document to Indian Institute of Science and spoke to scientists Ashish Varma and T V Ramachandra to get their opinion.
A WhatsApp group, Citizens for Sankey, was also formed and various civic activists and active residents became a part of it.
“We organised ourselves into a core group of 10 people to manage everything. We got the help of Jhatka.org when we wanted to start a petition against the project,” she says.
The petition has now gathered more than 25,000 signatures. “We met the Commissioner and handed over our letter. We realised the need to create more awareness,” she adds.
Thus a quick gathering was planned and experts in the field of law, environment, mobility, and public transport were invited. BBMP engineer-in-chief Prahlad also attended the programme.
After this meeting, it became evident that BBMP did not have a plan in place. “Sadashivanagar Resident Welfare Association asked us to present the findings, and later they ran a poll. The results of it have just come in, where 92% of respondents said they did not want the flyover,” says Kimsuka.
“We are sharing the information widely so that everyone is informed about what’s happening. We also tried to meet our MLA Ashwath Narayan but he has been unavailable despite repeated requests,” she says.
Citizens created a lot of buzz around the topic, with #flyoveryaake hashtag, which was picked up by other citizen groups in Bengaluru and was amplified.
As a result, the campaign attracted people from other areas too. Pravara Chaudhary, an architect and a mobility enthusiast from Indiranagar, partnered with citizens to make videos for the project. “I heard about the gathering and decided to attend it. We videographed it and shared it with the public later,” he explains.
Citizen volunteers reached out to schools nearby. More than 500 children from various schools sent postcards to the Chief Minister requesting him to stop the project. Many WhatsApp groups are buzzing with volunteers who are leaving no stone unturned to keep abreast of developments and stop the project.
“Many people are upset and are motivated to stop the project,” says Kimsuka. Citizens are asking the government to stop the project until they examine alternative solutions.
Letters were also submitted to MLA C N Ashwath Narayan, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, DULT and BMLTA. “We are tired of such ad-hoc planning. We want to be included in the decisions related to our neighbourhood,” says Sharath B R, a resident of Vyalikaval.